Climate Week in Focus: Our Climate and Health Experts Chart a Future in a World of “Overshoot”
After a summer of extreme heat and wildfires that punished Western Europe, a September 2 UN report marked a disappointing milestone. Global temperatures will soon surpass 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, missing a goal outlined in the 2015 Paris Climate Accords, the report’s authors acknowledged. In response to this “climate overshoot,” the report calls for a green energy transition away from fossil fuels, alongside greater investments to minimize the harms of climate change.
Starting September 20, the world’s leading climate experts—including several Columbia Mailman scientists—will gather as part of the annual Climate Week NYC, held alongside the UN General Assembly meeting. As climate overshoot dominates the headlines and Super El Niño gives the world a taste of future extreme weather impacts, the health impacts of climate change are becoming a growing concern. (See a list of Climate Week events featuring Columbia Mailman experts below.)
“If you think of our carbon budget like water in a bathtub, we’re now at a point where the bathtub is already very full and starting to spill over,” says Columbia Mailman climate scientist Robbie M. Parks, assistant professor of environmental health sciences. “What we’ve seen in the Northern Hemisphere this summer, especially in Europe, is a flavor of things to come, with the biggest impacts felt by the most marginalized communities everywhere. We’re very underprepared.
“At the same time, we mustn’t simply throw our hands up and say it’s too late. While the political will to address this crisis has ebbed in recent years, solar and wind are proliferating, offering a cheaper, less polluting alternative to fossil fuels,” Parks continues.
In August, Parks and co-authors published a commentary in The Lancet arguing for greater attention to the health impacts of climate change as a rationale for action. The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, held earlier this year in Santa Marta, Colombia, paid little attention to the issue, they noted. In a positive move, on September 7, the UN published a separate report that points to $10 trillion in economic savings by 2040 from a green energy transition, largely driven by decreased health costs from illness linked to air pollution from burning fossil fuels.
“It’s heartening to see greater attention paid to climate and health and the massive economic dividends possible if you adequately factor in health,” Parks says. “The field of climate and health is bigger than ever. We’re making a lot of progress in understanding the mechanisms of how global warming is driving all kinds of unwanted health outcomes, including understudied areas like mental health.”
Parks attended COP28 in Dubai in 2023, which for the first time hosted a dedicated Health Day for discussions on climate and health. This November, he will be attending COP31 in Antalya, Turkey, which will also have a Health Day. In the meantime, he and his climate and health colleagues are participating in several Climate Week events (see below). Parks is participating in an event at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works on Friday, and will be recording for his podcast, Surviving the Climate.
Climate and Health Leadership
In 2008, Columbia Mailman was the first U.S. school of public health to create a climate and health program to support research and education in the nascent field. Since then, the School's scientists have documented links between climate change and a range of unwanted health outcomes—extreme weather, food insecurity, wildfire smoke, mental health impacts, and more. In 2017, the School launched the Global Center for Climate and Health Education (GCCHE), which has grown to include more than 200 health professions schools and programs worldwide. Last year, the School launched the Center for Achieving Resilience in Climate and Health (C-ARCH) as a global solutions lab to respond to and mitigate the manifold detrimental health impacts of climate change while building adaptive capacity. Researchers have studied solutions like low-emissions stoves and controlled burning to lower wildfire risk, and have assessed the health benefits of steps to cut CO2 emissions, such as low-emissions buses.
Tuesday, September 22
Climate Impacts on Health: Sustainability for Health Professionals & the Next Generation
Cecilia Sorensen
Columbia Mailman
3:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Wednesday, September 23
Carbon Newbie Summit
Jeffrey Shaman
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
9:15 a.m.
Climate and Health Commons
Cecilia Sorensen
New York Academy of Medicine
1:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Thursday, September 24
Our Brains on a Changing Planet
Frederica Perera
NYU School of Global Public Health
10:00 a.m.– 12:00 p.m.
The Air They Breathe: How Curbing Climate Pollutants Helps Young Lungs and Brains
Frederica Perera
1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
Beyond the Forecast: El Niño, Society, and Climate Action
Jeffrey Shaman
The Forum at Columbia University
2:00 p.m.
High-Level Panel on Heat, Health, and Resilience
Kiros Berhane, Thoai Ngo, Darby Jack
The Annex
4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Friday, September 25
FLOODLINES
Robbie M. Parks
Pioneer Works
7 p.m.
CU Doctors Without Borders: A Night of Networking with Public Health Professionals
Jeffrey Shaman
Columbia University, Lerner Hall
7 p.m.