Threat of climate change on health - The Malagasy government is slow to make commitments - Voices of youth, 14 August 2015

Link of the article on Voices of Youth: http://www.voicesofyouth.org/en/posts/threat-of-climate-change-on-health---the-malagasy-government-is-slow-to-make-commitments

Ra Dom, Climate Tracker in Madagascar

The Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change of 2015 (COP21) in Paris fast approaching, the French Development Agency (AFD) regularly updates on its website the number of countries and territories whose governments have announced their contributions in the fight against climate change. It is obvious that very few African countries appear in the list of countries officially committed to this struggle. Madagascar, which is among the most vulnerable countries to extreme disasters related to climate change, is not on the list of countries formally committed.

88% of the world population breathe polluted air

The recent series of publications released by the leading medical journal, the Lancet, which led the United States to establish an action plan on climate change, should also alert the Malagasy state officials. This paper reports a declaration of Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO): “Globally, 88 per cent of the world’s population breathes air that does not meet WHO’s air quality guidelines.6 This is partly due to poverty and lack of access to clean energy—but it is also a result of policy choices”.

According to the report, 7 million premature deaths every year are attributed to air pollution, which has also been linked to increased incidence of heart attack, respiratory illness and epidemics. The WHO estimated that 250,000 people will die each year from 2030 to 2050 as a result of well-understood effects of climate change, largely due to a rise in heat exposure, higher rates of disease transmission, and food scarcity. Thus the Lancet describes climate change as the “greatest health opportunity of the 21st Century”.

Plague, malaria, cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses

In the case of Madagascar, the spread of communicable diseases, epidemics and cardiovascular illnesses shows that the threat of climate change on public health is real in the Great Island. These include cases of the plague outbreak in the capital and in Antsiranana in 2014. We should also mention the spread of malaria, tropical disease, in the capital and the growing number of fatal cases since April 2015. Let us quote finally the "thermal stress" due to the rising temperatures in temperate countries which results in an increase of cardiovascular illnesses related to hypertension and increased respiratory illnesses, particularly seasonal allergic rhinitis, in recent years.

The transition to clean energy is the best and the only effective solution to fight against climate change and its threats on public health. Since Madagascar has enormous renewable energy potential and will certainly be prioritized by green donors because of its poverty and its vulnerability to climate change, it is more than appropriate and urgent that the Malagasy government launched a national action plan on climate change.

Ra Dom

Read the original (French) version on http://www.matin.mg/?p=10681