The Climate Change Impacts and Challenges: Implications for Environmental Health Practitioners on a Local Scale in the Developing Countries.

ABSTRACT

There is no doubt that climate change is happening, humans are causing it and perhaps climate change is one of the biggest single challenges to the future of our civilization and risk to our countries. Climate change can jeopardize health more directly through heat-related morbidity and mortality; flooding and storms with associated trauma and mental health concerns; and infectious diseases, particularly those that are water or vector borne. Also, the economy is often one of another aspects that climate change can greatly impact populations through rises in the inflation rate in those countries affected by natural disasters. Whilst efforts have been undertaken to minimize the impacts of climate change on the local level, challenges and implications remain obvious. The implications include people’s reliance on local environment; lack of local resources and knowledge; and lack of rural development surveillance and monitoring systems. On a local scale, enhancing local knowledge and capacity of environmental issues require integration of climate change into country plans, incorporating adaptation into decision making and sharing knowledge through training. In this conceptual paper, it is argued that the ability to respond to climate change is enabled by involving local knowledge in the development of a national environmental health policy. The ability of communities to respond to the impacts of climate change is central to the concept of sustainable development. This analytical observation seeks to provide recommendations for both global and local leaders to act accordingly in minimizing the impacts of climate change.