Intergovernmental engagement on health impacts of climate change
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVE: To examine countries' engagement with the health impacts of climate change in their formal statements to intergovernmental organizations, and the factors driving engagement. METHODS: We obtained the texts of countries' annual statements in United Nations (UN) general debates from 2000 to 2019 and their nationally determined contributions at the Paris Agreement in 2016. To measure countries' engagement, we used a keyword-in-context text search with relevant search terms to count the total number of references to the relationship of health to climate change. We used a machine learning model (random forest predictions) to identify the most important country-level predictors of engagement. The predictors included political and economic factors, health outcomes, climate change-related variables and membership of political negotiating groups in the UN. FINDINGS: For both UN general debate statements and nationally determined contributions, low- and middle-income countries discussed the health impacts of climate change much more than did high-income countries. The most important predictors of engagement were health outcomes (infant mortality, maternal deaths, life expectancy), countries' income levels (gross domestic product per capita), and fossil fuel consumption. Membership of political negotiating groups (such as the Group of 77 and Small Island Developing States) was a less important predictor. CONCLUSION: Our analysis indicated a higher engagement in countries that carry the heaviest climate-related health burdens, but lack necessary resources to address the impacts of climate change. These countries are shouldering responsibility for reminding the global community of the implications of climate change for people's health.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Engagement by governments and political leaders is central to delivering climate change action that protects human health.
“Engagement by governments and political leaders is central to delivering climate change action that protects human health.347,348”
From The 2024 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: facing record-breaking threats from delayed action (2024) · cites this paper as [347]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Watts, N., Amann, M., Ayeb-Karlsson, S., Belesova, K., Bouley, T., Boykoff, M., Byass, P., Cai, W., Campbell-Lendrum, D., Chambers, J., et al. (2018) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(17)32464-9 · Cited by 1,236 · see citing works
Self-citationReframing climate change as a public health issue: an exploratory study of public reactions
Maibach, E. W., Nisbet, M., Baldwin, P., Akerlof, K., & Diao, G. (2010) · BMC Public Health · doi:10.1186/1471-2458-10-299 · Cited by 454 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 19
- [1]Watts N, Amann M, Arnell N, Ayeb-Karlsson S, Belesova K, Boykoff M, et al. The 2019 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: ensuring that the health of a child born today is not defined by a changing climate. Lancet. 2019 11 16; 394(10211): 1836– 78. 10.1016/S0140-6736(19)32596-6 31733928 PMC7616843 · DOI
- [3]Lelieveld J, Evans JS, Fnais M, Giannadaki D, Pozzer A. The contribution of outdoor air pollution sources to premature mortality on a global scale. Nature. 2015 9 17; 525(7569): 367– 71. 10.1038/nature15371 26381985 · DOI · Paper page
- [6]Smith KR, Woodward A, Campbell-Lendrum D, Chadee DD, Honda Y, Liu Q, et al. Human health: impacts, adaptation and co-benefits. In: Field C, Barros V, Dokken D, Mach KJ, Mastrandrea MD, Bilir TE, et al., editors. Climate change 2014: impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Part A: global and sectoral aspects. Contribution of working group II to the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 2014. pp. 709–54. Available from: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WGIIAR5-Chap11_FINAL.pdf [cited 2020 Jun 2].
- [8]Costello A, Abbas M, Allen A, Ball S, Bell S, Bellamy R, et al. Managing the health effects of climate change. Lancet. 2009 5 16; 373(9676): 1693– 733. 10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60935-1 19447250 · DOI · Paper page
- [13]Dickin S, Dzebo A. Missing in climate action: concrete health activities in nationally determined contributions. Lancet Planet Health. 2018 4; 2(4): e144. 10.1016/S2542-5196(18)30046-9 29615212 · DOI
- [14]Workman A, Blashki G, Bowen KJ, Karoly DJ, Wiseman J. The political economy of health co-benefits: embedding health in the climate change agenda. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2018 4 4; 15(4): 674. 10.3390/ijerph15040674 29617317 PMC5923716 · DOI
- [15]Watts N, Amann M, Arnell N, Ayeb-Karlsson S, Belesova K, Berry H, et al. The 2018 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: shaping the health of nations for centuries to come. Lancet. 2018 12 8; 392(10163): 2479– 514. 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32594-7 30503045 PMC7616804 · DOI
- [18]Baturo A, Dasandi N, Mikhaylov SJ. Understanding state preferences with text as data: introducing the UN General Debate Corpus. Research & Politics. 2017; (Apr-Jun): 1– 9. 10.1177/2053168017712821 · DOI
- [20]Tobin P, Schmidt NM, Tosun J, Burns C. Mapping states’ Paris climate pledges: analysing targets and groups at COP 21. Glob Environ Change. 2018; 48: 11– 21. 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.11.002 · DOI
- [21]Atteridge A, Verkuijlb C, Dzeboa A. Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) as instruments for promoting national development agendas? An analysis of small island developing states (SIDS). Clim Policy. 2020; 20(4): 485– 98. 10.1080/14693062.2019.1605331 · DOI
- [22]Mills-Nova M, Liverman DM. Nationally determined contributions: material climate commitments and discursive positioning in the NDCs. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Clim Change. 2019; 10: e589 10.1002/wcc.589 · DOI
- [23]Barnett J. The geopolitics of climate change. Geogr Compass. 2007; 1(6): 1361– 75. 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2007.00066.x · DOI
- [24]Kim SY, Russett B. The new politics of voting alignment in the United Nations General Assembly. Int Organ. 1996; 50(4): 629– 52. 10.1017/S0020818300033531 · DOI
- [28]Manning CD, Schütze H. Foundations of statistical language processing. Cambridge: MIT Press; 1999.
- [33]Breiman L. Random forests. Mach Learn. 2001; 45(1): 5– 32. 10.1023/A:1010933404324 · DOI · Paper page
- [34]Wright MN, Ziegler A. ranger: a fast implementation of random forests for high dimensional data in C++ and R. J Stat Softw. 2017; 77(1): 1– 17. 10.18637/jss.v077.i01 · DOI
- [36]Dodd W, Howard C, Rose C, Scott C, Scott P, Cunsolo A, et al. The summer of smoke: ecosocial and health impacts of a record wildfire season in the Northwest Territories, Canada. Lancet Glob Health. 2018; 6 Special Issue: S30 10.1016/S2214-109X(18)30159-1 PMC6964492 29981098 · DOI
- [37]Carroll B, Morbey H, Balogh R, Araoz G. Flooded homes, broken bonds, the meaning of home, psychological processes and their impact on psychological health in a disaster. Health Place. 2009 6; 15(2): 540– 7. 10.1016/j.healthplace.2008.08.009 18996730 · DOI
- [38]Barnett J. The geopolitics of climate change. Geogr Compass. 2007; 1(6): 1361– 75. 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2007.00066.x · DOI
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for a healthy future
Romanello, M., McGushin, A., Di Napoli, C., Drummond, P., Hughes, N., Jamart, L., Kennard, H., Lampard, P., Solano Rodriguez, B., Arnell, N., et al. (2021) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(21)01787-6 · Cited by 1,603 · see citing works
Self-citationRomanello, M., Walawender, M., Hsu, S.-C., Moskeland, A., Palmeiro-Silva, Y., Scamman, D., Ali, Z., Ameli, N., Angelova, D., Ayeb-Karlsson, S., et al. (2024) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(24)01822-1 · Cited by 897 · see citing works
“347,348 This set of indicators monitors political engagement with health and climate change through national leaders and international organisations.”
Self-citation
- Authors
- Dasandi, N., Graham, H., Lampard, P., & Jankin Mikhaylov, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Birmingham (GB)
- University of York (GB)
- Data Science Lab, Hertie School, Berlin, Germany.
- Corresponding author
- Dasandi, Niheer
- Venue
- Bulletin of the World Health Organization
- Publisher
- WHO Press
- Published
- 2020-11-04
- Volume
- 99
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 102-111B
- ISSN
- 0042-9686 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7856366
- OpenAlex
- W3127581709
- Cited by
- 20
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 3
- FWCI
- 0.78
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Bulletin of the World Health Organization (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (acceptedVersion)
- OPUS 4 (Zuse Institute Berlin) (submittedVersion)
- University of Birmingham Research Portal (University of Birmingham) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- University of Birmingham Research Portal (University of Birmingham) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Bulletin of the World Health Organization (cc-by)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/S012257/1)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Climate Change and Health Impacts
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology
- Keywords
- health impacts of climate change, Nationally Determined Contributions, Paris Agreement, low- and middle-income countries, health outcomes, infant mortality, maternal death, life expectancy, GDP per capita, fossil fuel consumption, Group of 77, small island developing states, climate change negotiations
- MeSH terms
- Healthy Lifestyle, Fossil Fuels, Humans, Infant, Infant Mortality, Life Expectancy, United Nations, Climate Change, Gross Domestic Product
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
