On the economics of climate change and health: An overview

Abstract

The World Health Organization acknowledges several key directions in which climate change impacts on health. Extreme heat is responsible for many deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and contributes significantly to spreading allergens. The prevalence of malnutrition and undernutrition increases with the floods and heavy rainfalls, while the pattern of infections is also influenced, and the incidence of cancers is on the rise. In the same time, the research community admits that isolating and measuring the effects of climate change on health is a very difficult task. A lot of work has been carried recently for this purpose, revealing many promising directions for further exploration. The aim of this chapter is twofold. On one side, it intends to review the existing literature in the area of health and climate change, with a focus on the methods and methodologies used until now. On the other side, we provide a discussion on the specificities of the Central and Eastern European case, emphasizing the particular role of perception and subjective beliefs on the topic of climate change and global warming in this region. The main findings show that climate change has a negative impact on human health, in two main directions: air pollution and increasing temperatures. Pollution affects negatively human health; the results of the experimental sections demonstrating that there is a high correlation between the levels of CO2 emissions, as an indicator of pollution, and the incidence of cancer show the health status. Increasing temperatures negatively affect human health, the most affected areas in Europe being Central and Eastern European countries. In this region, an increase of 0-5 °C of the average temperatures, due to climate change, leads to illnesses caused by microorganisms, which survive and multiply in a warmer environment