Speech by Dr Angela Pratt at International Scientific Conference on Climate Change and Health & 6th Asia-Pacific Green Healthcare System Conference

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Please let me start by saying thank you to our hosts, and to all participants here today: it is heartening to see such a big turnout for this conference, with participants from such a wide range of agencies and organizations.  

We are here today because we all agree on something fundamental: that is, the importance of taking action to address the health impacts of climate change. Every day, the evidence continues to mount on this.  

Climate change threatens the essential ingredients of good health – clean air, safe drinking water, nutritious food supply and safe shelter – and has the potential to undermine decades of progress in global health.  

Globally, between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress alone.  

Climate change is also affecting people’s health and well-being indirectly, by threatening the capacity of health systems to protect the health of their populations – for instance, health care facilities which are often not built to cope with increasing, extreme climate events including storms, floods and droughts.  

We experienced this first-hand in Viet Nam less than 2 months ago, when Typhoon Yagi, Viet Nam’s strongest storm in 30 years, struck the northern part of the country with powerful winds, devastating floods and landslides – damaging more than 800 health care facilities in the process.  

The experience of Yagi illustrates how health care facilities in low and middle income countries are particularly vulnerable, as they often lack stable infrastructure, adequate sanitation, and reliable supplies of water and energy. 

We all know Viet Nam is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. And indeed, the stakes are particularly high here in Asia more broadly. In Asia, temperatures are rising twice as fast as the global average. 

The combination of rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns are leading to changes in patterns of climate-sensitive disease, such as dengue. The dengue epidemiology in Viet Nam is changing before our eyes: communities that were never before affected by dengue are now seeing more cases and less predictable outbreaks.  

And of course, air pollution – caused by some of the same factors which are responsible for climate change – is a persistent concern. Ha Noi regularly experiences some of the poorest air quality in Asia, a huge health hazard for people’s health.   

It is important to remember that around the world, health systems also contribute to climate change.  

Globally, the health sector makes up nearly 5% of net climate emissions – through energy consumption, health care supply chains, as well as factors such as poor management of health care waste, which can also pollute the environment.  

So, the challenges we face in tackling the health impacts of climate change, as well as the health sector drivers of climate change, are immense.  

But here in Viet Nam, I’m so happy that the Ministry of Health and the Government have made very strong commitments to action in this area.  

Let me give you two examples.  

In November last year, Viet Nam joined the Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate and Health, known as ATACH. WHO established ATACH to help countries deliver on commitments made at COP26 on climate change and health, the same COP that the Prime Minister of Viet Nam committed to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. 

Joining ATACH is a demonstration both of Viet Nam’s commitment to action on climate change and health, as well as its desire to learn from and share experiences with other countries around the world who have made similar commitments. 

WHO is very proud to support this work – and a couple of months ago I was privileged to visit Yen Thanh District General Hospital, in the central Viet Nam province of Nghe An, to see it in action. 

In the past, there was not enough clean water at the hospital for patients to brush their teeth, wash their faces, shower, do laundry or flush the toilet. This was because the hospital was effectively competing for its water with the agricultural sector – twice a year during harvest season, the hospital’s water supply was cut off. 

Not surprisingly, people avoided the hospital – and bacterial and other infections were common.  The lack of water compromised the safety of patients, staff and the community. 

Working together with the Government, we helped address the water shortage – by supporting a modest investment in infrastructure which enabled a different supply of raw water to be piped to the hospital year-round. Thanks to the support of partners, the hospital has also been able to improve waste management, and solar panels – to improve energy efficiency – have also been installed.  

Thanks to these improvements, the hospital has been able to significantly increase the number of medical procedures it carries out, and energy efficiency has been greatly improved. And I know from my visit there, both the staff and the patients are happier.  

Other health care facilities around Viet Nam will be able to reap similar benefits, once we can unlock the resources to scale up improvements like these nationwide.  

I use these two examples because they demonstrate both the Government’s high-level political commitment to addressing the impacts of climate change on health, as well as to doing the work and making the investments at the very local level, which will make – and are already making – a real difference to people’s lives.  

So, while the challenges are huge, I personally am hopeful and optimistic – because we have a very strong foundation for close and active cooperation with the Government and the many partners represented here today, as this conference demonstrates.  

Thank you again for the opportunity to be here and to speak briefly today, I wish all of you an excellent conference – and look forward to our continued work together to build a healthier, safer and more climate resilient Viet Nam.