1.D. Workshop: Food and water insecurities in a warming climate: What role for Public Health?
Authors:   Organised by: WFPHA Environmental Health working group, WFPHA Health in Emergencies working group,   Chair persons: Liz Hanna - Australia
Published: October 2020

Food and water are fundamental environmental health determinants. They are necessities of life, such that shortfalls in ready access in sufficient quality and quantity precipitate poor health, failure to thrive, susceptibility to disease, and if not rectified, ultimately lead to death. Archeological and historical records testify that large scale interruptions to food and water supplies trigger widespread social upheaval and when driven by systematic inequities in distribution, can overthrow governments.

The desperation to secure survival is deep-seated. Competition for scarce resources, mass migration and conflict further generate environmental damage, disruptions to social cohesion, and can also herald novel challenges to health and wellbeing. Climate change is accelerating and with it, increasing intensity of extreme events such as heatwaves, droughts, fires, storms and floods. These interrupt food and water supplies and income generation. Unless transformative and rapid reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved, and achieved promptly, the global population will be forced to confront escalation in shortfalls.

Will wealthy nations accommodate the needs of the global disadvantaged?

Exposure of agricultural sectors to climate extremes is already reversing gains made towards ending malnutrition and achieving SDG1: Reducing global hunger and malnutrition. Global water insecurity is also intensifying. A perfect storm is looming with accelerated global warming against a backdrop of rapid population growth and existing challenges in ensuring water and food security for all. The combination of lethal heat extremes and intensifying insecurities in these basic human needs threatens to make many homelands uninhabitable.

Humanity is creating a Climate Change Emergency, which translates to a Global Public Health Emergency. It is thus incumbent upon the world's public health community to move beyond engagement in this climate change crisis. We must step up and take leadership to protect the health of all. Is the PPRR risk management model: Prevent, Prepare, Respond and Recover, the way forward?

Workshop participants will have the opportunity to hear from a panel of three public health experts from the World Federation of Public Health Association to gain a deep understanding of the relationship pathways between climate change and these accelerating health threats. Recent global disasters events will illustrate the diversity and extent of this unfolding crisis. Examples of promising Public Health Response solutions will highlight what can be achieved by applying a coordinated public health lens.

This interactive session elicits audience involvement through facilitated Question and Answer discussion. Following the panel presentations, the Q&A session will enable workshop participants to explore how better engagement of the public health sector can serve to help ameliorate the risks, and build resilience through Climate Change PPRR.

Key messages

Interruptions to food and water security generate disease, famine, conflict and in severe circumstances mass migration, disproportionately harming the global disadvantaged, and ultimately everyone. Climate change risks food & water security and thus threatens human wellbeing. Observed effects will dramatically escalate. The global public health community must engage to protect health.