What do we have to lose? Understanding and responding to climate-induced loss of life and health
Climate change poses an acute risk to many aspects of our lives. It threatens our livelihoods and assets, our cultural heritage and societies, the biodiversity of this planet and the valuable ecosystem services it provides. But there are few impacts so devastating to an individual, or with such wide-reaching economic as well as non-economic effects on society, as the loss of life and health.
This paper focuses on one subset of non-economic loss and damage (NELD) that has considerable overlap with economic losses: loss and damage relating to human lives and health. Research on loss and damage so far has mostly been on economic loss and damage, which in this case might relate to rebuilding hospitals destroyed by extreme weather events, or lost productivity hours due to heat stress. Where NELD has been studied, loss and damage to health and agency has received more attention than other dimensions, like cultural heritage or biodiversity and ecosystems, but there is still a need to explicitly draw out lessons from related sectors and develop taxonomies that can guide decision-makers. Against this backdrop, this paper highlights the nature of loss and damage to human health and agency; some ways in which climate change may contribute to it; and potential responses to avert, minimise and address it.