Greenhouse Gases, Climate Change and Ill Health

Waka Africa Org Climate Change Journal by John Ouma, Director Department of Climate Change and Research

Industrialization affects energy, technology, transport, education and health sectors. The phenomenon has been characterized by the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs), particulates and hazardous industrial wastewater, which find their way into the human body. These industrial wastewaters pollute the soil and water sources, devastating human health, as was the case of Owino Uhuru slums Kenya’s Mombasa in Kenya (Ericson et al., 2019). On the other hand, China contributes to 27% of CO2 and 33% of GHGs globally. The country has been experiencing smog in Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Chongqing, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Harbin, Chengdu, Shijiazhuang, and Tianjin, among other megacities, with only one city (Lhasa) out of its 52 cities having pollution levels that were below the recommended limits (Ethan et al., 2021; Vanzo, 2023). Industrial emissions are majorly made up of GHGs, contributing immensely to global warming. This global warming has expedited climate change through frequent and intense heat waves, droughts, famine and flooding. Consequentially, a rapid increase in heat gain by the human body due to exposure to hotter-than-average conditions compromises the body’s capacity to regulate temperature and can result in a cascade of illnesses such as heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heatstroke, and hyperthermia. Deaths and hospitalizations from heat can also occur rapidly or exude a lagged effect that expedites the death process. Extreme temperatures can also worsen chronic conditions such as cardiovascular, respiratory, and cerebrovascular disease and diabetes-related conditions. The heat indirectly alters human conditions such as behaviour, the transmission of diseases, delivery of health services, air quality, and critical social-based infrastructure like energy, transport and water. Increased temperatures in highlands have also been shown to increase the survivability of tropical-based vectors such as mosquitoes and tsetse flies, subsequently increasing the prevalence of infections caused by these vectors.


Climate change and ill health

Typically, extreme temperatures cause heat-related ailments like cardiovascular, respiratory and kidney complications. Usually, in extreme temperatures, the human body fails to match its cooling capacity with the heat being generated in the environment, causing the individual to suffer from heat stress.

The African continent is hit hard by the climate change crisis. Although the continent contributes to about 2-3% of the GHGs globally, it suffers disproportionately from the effects of climate change (State of Climate in Africa Highlights Water Stress and Hazards, 2022). For example, water stress is projected to affect about 250 million people, and reported that four out of five African countries are likely to need more time to manage their water by 2030 sustainably. The study further connotes that the Horn of Africa is drought-stricken, with reports showing that the continent’s climate has warmed more than the global average since the pre-industrial age (1850-1900). Therefore, the study concludes that the rising temperatures, heat waves, extensive floods, droughts, and rise in the sea level cause loss of lives, damage of property, and displacement of populations, which jeopardizes Africa's efforts to meet the targets of UN's SDGs and the AU Agenda 2063. For example, the research work further revealed that the drought in East Africa has worsened due to the failure of two consecutive rain seasons, raising food prices with over 58 million living in conditions of acute food security. The countries that have been hit hard by the drought include Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Madagascar. For instance, more than 3.5 million Kenyans faced severe food shortages in Kenya when intense drought hit the country hard, replacing the rainy seasons (Obwocha et al., 2022). Extreme weather has also resulted in severe floods in countries like South Sudan, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo, DRC, and Burundi. Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Libya have experienced extreme heat associated with wildfires, sand, and dust storms that reached as far as Southern and Central Europe (State of the Climate in Africa, 2021).

The emergence of a heatwave creates an array of effects that have a trickle-down effect on different sectors such as health, agriculture, transport, environment and the economy. Increasing one °C in temperature in a given year reduces economic growth by 1.3% (Maino & Emrullahu, 2022). Research by Kahn et al. (2021) revealed that a consistent rise in temperature of 0.04°C per year, where there is a lack of mitigation policies, will reduce real-world GDP per capita by more than 7 per cent by 2100. However, when the Paris Agreement is adhered to, limiting the temperature increase to 0.01°C per year, the loss will be significantly reduced to about 1%. These effects vary significantly across countries depending on the pace at which the temperature increases and the differences in climatic conditions. Climate change is expected to severely reduce Africa's GDP by 1.4% through lowered crop yields, decreased agricultural and labour productivity, and damage to human health (Orlov et al., 2020).


Agriculture

Extreme daytime temperature damages non-heat-tolerant crops such as cocoa, coffee, tea, rice, wheat, and maise (Chávez-Arias et al., 2021). Such temperature also increases the prevalence of livestock experiencing heat stress, and as animals need to cool constantly, they are severely affected. For example, heat-stressed cattle have been reported to produce less milk, grow slower, and have reduced conception rates falling from 83% down to 37% (Young et al., n.d.). Heat waves also exacerbate drought situations and increase the prevalence of wildfires, which may destroy animal-feeding areas. For example, the 2021 drought in the West caused cattle ranches in North Dakota to sell their animals due to the projected lack of feeds for the winter (Fountain, 2021). Wildfires in California also burned agricultural land, causing a rise in the cost of insurance for farms and wineries (Weston, 2023).

Russia's territory is 65% permafrost, and with the recent rise in temperature at a rate of 0.4-0.5 °C every ten years, melting is reshaping the country's landscape (Conley & Newlin, 2021). As the tundra thaws to global warming, there will be significant effects on human settlements and binding energy and transportation infrastructure designed to withstand extreme cold. Russia is warming 2.5 times faster than the other parts of the world. With these high temperatures, the country has been massive forest fires with the 2019's incident, which burned through a landmass equal to the size of Greece, while flash floods in Siberia destroyed a whole village, displacing thousands of people. The melting also releases long-stored greenhouse gases such as methane, accelerating the warming feedback loop (Times, 2021). The impact will be very intense on precipitation, drought, famine, and wildfires, especially in hard-to-reach areas like Siberia and the Far East. Siberia has already reported a wildfire with a 2,000-kilometre frontline. However, Russia seems to be refashioning itself as the world's largest food producer by taking advantage of the warming temperatures and longer growing seasons brought about by climate change to plant crops such as soybean, wheat and corn (Lustgarten, 2020). For instance, Russia is now the world's largest wheat exporter, accounting for at least 25%. Generally, Russia's agricultural exports have grown 16 times in the 2000-2018 period. Russia’s East exported 900,000 tons of soybeans with a forecast to till the land of up to 3.7 million acres and harvest at least 2 million tons of soybeans (Lustgarten, 2020). There is enough reason to believe that as those places become temperate, they will receive an influx of people displaced from the hottest parts of the world, as has been the case with the Chinese in Russia's East. Lustgarten (2020) also connotes that although most of its land is covered in permafrost, Canada is home to 20% of the world's freshwater, flush with land, timber, oil, gas and hydropower. It is projected that by 2100, climate change will make Canadians 2.5 times richer in their per capita GDP than they would be if the planet were not warming. As of 2020, the county had increased its immigration target by 14% to become a preferred destination for global immigrants.


Energy

In the US, heat waves profoundly impact energy operations like production, transmission, and demand. High summer temperatures cause a strain on the energy system by triggering a 5-20% rise in the demand for electricity for cooling. However, they also reduce the capacity of the transmission lines to carry power, thus interrupting transmissions (‘Heat Waves and Climate Change’, n.d.). This phenomenon affects response efforts since power transmission companies may be forced to roll out reliability responses like blackouts. Furthermore, warmer rivers and lakes imply reduced capacity to absorb waste heat from power plants. This increase in temperature lowers the thermal efficiency of producing power, jeopardizing the efforts by the power plants to comply with environmental regulations on the temperatures of their cooling waters. In the worst-case scenario, the plants may be forced to shut down due to non-compliance with environmental regulation policies. Some fires have also been sparked following contacts between trees and electrical distribution lines, as was the case with California's Dixie Fire in 2021 which damaged above-ground power lines and transmission towers (US EPA, 2022). Flooding also affects underground power lines and destroys transport systems.

Generally, extreme weather and natural disasters significantly disrupt the energy supply. The hurricanes and rising sea levels in the Gulf and East Coast of the US risk damaging the electricity supply lines (US EPA, 2022). The study also established that an increase in temperature implies that the atmospheric capacity to hold more moisture increases, leading to drought and decreasing river water volumes. This phenomenon reduces the water supply needed for cooling petroleum, natural gas, biofuels and hydropower production plants, especially in the West of the US. Therefore, many states are upgrading and protecting their energy infrastructure from extreme weather conditions. There are public-private partnerships through research to help businesses and governments innovate and install novel sources of energy that are resilient to the changes in climate. Concerted efforts in adopting renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar will help to reduce emissions of GHGs.


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