Heat and Health at COP28
Source: Nora White
The negotiations and fanfare have officially kicked off at the 28th Conference of the Parties in Dubai with reports of over 80,000 people attending the conference this year. After two days of speeches and plenaries at the high-level Climate Action Summit, world leaders have announced a series of large commitments – some meaningful, some symbolic – and most have headed back to their home countries. Starting yesterday (December 3rd), the conference shifted focus to key negotiations and thematic days. The backdrop of the conference is sunny, hot Dubai. We are currently in one of the cooler times of the year, but limited tree cover means significant sun exposure in the lines to get into the venue. Once inside Expo City, you can mostly manage to stay cool in the shade, but the venue is sprawling and the walk from one end to the other is long and primarily outdoors. Overall, it is an interesting setting for talks about limiting global warming to ‘well below 2 degrees Celsius’. The heat here – apparently nothing compared to the summer months – puts the dangers of a hotter world into stark perspective.
December 3rd was the first thematic day after the conclusion of the Climate Action Summit. The theme of the day was Health/Relief, Recovery, and Peace. In the past few days, I have spoken to several healthcare workers – many of whom are attending COP for the first time – who feel heartened that the health impacts of climate change are finally being recognized and prioritized at the UN level. Seeing migrant workers throughout the city doing construction in the hot desert sun has brought health front of mind for me as well – at what point is it too hot for humans to continue working outside in the heat? While we have found ways to engineer our way out of constant heat exposure through air-conditioning, not everyone has the luxury of escaping to the AC on a hot day.
Dubai is a quintessential example of our belief that we can engineer our way out of environmental limitations and challenges. Unfortunately, most of that engineering seems to primarily benefit the privileged few who can afford to access it. And even for those of us who can afford it, do we really want to live in a world where we move from one air-conditioned space to another, never able to be outside? Yesterday’s theme, and the hot Dubai days, are a reminder that there may be a limit to our ability to engineer our way out of the climate crisis. Our bodies have natural limits, and while we may be able to develop further innovations in cooling and health, it is likely that many more people will perish from heat related illnesses in the process.
As an adaptation researcher, my mind goes to how we build resilience to the hotter days ahead. Of course, firstly, we need to stop further warming through fossil fuel phaseouts – this is the key goal that the UNFCCC negotiations need to achieve. But we also know that we are already on track for a certain amount of warming based on our current and past emissions, so preparing for that is critical. How can processes like the COP negotiations enable countries and communities to better protect their citizens from extreme heat? In the U.S., local governments are opening public cooling centers during heat emergencies and ensuring access to water. But are these steps feasible, or even sufficient, in all parts of the world? What about the places that experience what could be considered a ‘heat emergency’ more than 200 days of the year? We often think of large disasters, or sudden-onset shocks when we think of the climate crisis, but heat is a slow-onset hazard that can have major impacts on health, wellbeing, and economic progress.
As COP28 continues over the coming days, I hope that health remains a key area of focus in the negotiations and side events. As the negotiating teams spend their days in discussions about emissions reductions and adaptation goals, often navigating the limitations placed on them by the politics of their home governments, I hope that they also keep in mind the physical limitations that we are quickly approaching – both at the planetary level as well as the individual one. There is only so much we can engineer our way out of – this COP is a reminder of that.
Bethany Tietjen is a Predoctoral Research Fellow at The Climate Policy Lab at The Fletcher School.