The nature and scale of the response to climate change will determine the human health for centuries to come in China

Climate change would pose a range of threat to human health both directly and indirectly. The direct adverse effects of climate change to human health include increased frequency of heatwaves, storms, floods, forest fire and drought. The indirect effects usually mediate through impacts on environmental conditions and ecosystems (e.g., air pollution, food insecurity and under-nutrition, and changing patterns of disease), economies, and social structure (e.g., displacement, migration and conflict). To map out the impacts that climate change is having on human health, and the health consequences of the global policy response, the 2015 Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change and the Lancet Countdown: tracking progress on health and climate change has been initiated, with strong collaboration of world-class expertise from multiple disciplines and leading academic institutions around the world. The 2018 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change tracks 41 indicators across five domains: Climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerability; adaptation, planning, and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; finance and economics; and public and political engagement. The report warns that a lack of progress in reducing emissions and building adaptive capacity threatens both human lives and the viability of the national health systems they depend on, with the potential to disrupt core public health infrastructure and overwhelm health services. Therefore, the nature and scale of the response to climate change will be the determining factor in shaping the health of nations for centuries to come. China is the global hotspot in both climate change mitigation and human health protection. Thus, in addition to the annual editions of the Lancet Countdown global report, scholars from Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University who have been involved in the series of global reports, are invited to prepare the China policy brief, to provide a unique national analysis and policy recommendations for health and climate change. The 2018 edition of China policy brief, prepared by experts from Tsinghua University and Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, reviewed three indicators mostly related to China’s national conditions, i.e. change in labour capacity, exposure to ambient air pollution and coverage and strength of carbon pricing, and proposed the following policy recommendations: (1) Pay more attention to the labour capacity loss driven by climate change in the policymaking process. Curb greenhouse gas emissions and take effective adaptation measures to manage heat stress at work and avoided unaffordable heat-related economic loss. (2) Prioritize measures that both decrease greenhouse gas emissions and reduce air pollution and its related health costs, and incorporate analysis of those benefits into the climate and air pollution control policymaking process in order to fully realize short-term health co-benefits and prevent climate-change-related meteorological conditions that will worsen air pollution in the long run. (3) Ensure full operation of the national ETS and implement ambitious carbon pricing policy as soon as possible. Fully consider the health co-benefits of carbon pricing, speed up the capacity building process, apply carbon pricing broadly across China without delay, and enhance ambition gradually.