A job ad published in Flanders earlier this month has garnered a lot of attention: The Belgian region is searching for a “climate doctor” to tackle the medical consequences of climate change.
In Europe and beyond, governments are realising that the consequences of climate change have started to take effect and cannot be reversed. Attention is turning to mitigation, from flood defences to drought-resistant crops, alongside efforts to cut emissions and minimise future effects.
The impact on human health can also be severe. Globally, the World Health Organization calls climate change “the biggest health threat facing humanity,” estimating that the resulting costs will amount to between $2 billion and $4 billion per year by 2030.
The Flemish health ministry could therefore be a trendsetter. The climate doctor, who is still to be hired, will be tasked with identifying threats, creating action plans and advising policymakers.
“Previously people thought climate change is all about the polar bears or people in Africa,” says Anne Stauff of the Health and Environment Alliance, a Brussels-based NGO. “But by now, with all these changes we have seen, the message has really hit home that actually, this is very much about Europe. This is about our health.”
Environmental events can have a variety of consequences for human health, not all of them obvious. Besides the risk of drowning, for example, flooding can bring water-borne bacteria or provoke a mental health crisis in people who lose their homes.
Poor air quality, caused by local pollution but exacerbated by a hotter climate, causes severe health problems. It is responsible for 253,000 premature deaths in the EU each year, according to an assessment from 2023 by the European Environmental Agency.
“All of the main climate change hazards have an impact on health,” says Wouter Vanneuville, an expert on climate change adaptation at the agency.
Invasive plants such as ragweed lead to new allergies. French government agency ANSES has estimated that ragweed pollen costs the country’s health services between €59 million and €186 million each year. Plus, allergy seasons are becoming longer and stronger in general.
But the most pressing and visible issue in Europe is heat. Last year was the hottest on record, and 2024 is gearing up to beat it. Forty-seven thousand people in Europe died from heat-related causes in 2023 and 61,000 the year before. That accounts for 95% of all fatalities caused by natural hazards.
“These numbers should be a wake-up call,” Stauff says, noting that Europe is the fastest-warming continent on the planet and particularly vulnerable due to its urban and aging population.
New threats
Heatwaves will be near the top of the to-do list for Flanders’ new climate doctor. “ In Flanders there are more heatwaves than ever before,” says Joris Moonens, spokesperson of the Department of Care, the agency in the Flemish regional government that is hiring for the role. He suggests that legislation governing air conditioning in elderly homes, or mandatory heat breaks for outdoor workers, could be among the first things to explore.
The climate doctor will also have to deal with the tiger mosquito, which carries dengue fever. As high temperatures and humidity have risen, this species has settled down in 78 of France's 96 administrative departments across its 18 regions, and established a small population in Belgium. Last year, there were 130 locally acquired cases of dengue reported in the EU.
Other types of mosquitos and dangerous insects could likewise establish populations in Europe in the coming years, with potentially severe health consequences. “It is conceivable that in a not-so-far future, even malaria becomes endemic in our region,” says Moonens.
The issue of climate-related healthcare is also gaining traction at the EU level, says Vanneuville. The bloc set up the European Climate and Health Observatory in 2021, and senior politicians are now discussing whether to include a climate element in the new health commissioner’s portfolio, he says.
In March, the European Environmental Agency published its European Climate Risk Assessment, which found that policies are not keeping pace with the rapidly growing risks, and that without urgent action some of the health impacts could become catastrophic by 2100.
Stauff says that policymakers need a greater sense of urgency. “We need to place health and health protection at the centre of all EU climate policy,” she says.