The recent UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen was organised on the background of the growing international acceptance that the environmental changes that modern society are witnessing are iatrogenic in nature and that corrective mechanisms should be put in place in order to reverse the trend of a gradually warming planet.

However, the fact that climate change is also a public health issue is not at the foremost of public consciousness despite the fact that our health can be affected by climate change through a number of ways:

Decrease in resources

The gradual decline in fresh water and arable land will be causes of insufficient potable water and malnutrition. The demand for such resources in an atmosphere of dwindling supply will also lead to the inexorable increase in levels of poverty, arguably the most important factor in public health.

Spread of infectious diseases

The change in mean temperature brings about subtle changes to an ecosystem’s flora and more importantly, its fauna. Effects tend to include changes in range and seasonality of outbreaks. This is of a particular importance with regards to insect vectors especially mosquitoes and flies, who are together, the most dangerous animals known to man.

Natural disasters

People can be more directly affect by floods and famine; not only to such events predispose entire societies to diseases such as cholera and dehydration from heat waves, but entire working populations can be wiped out with the end result of psycho-social displacement that leads to further increase in healthcare inequalities and a decline in national economic growth.

Just as importantly, the factors that are said to contribute to global climate change can have just as devastating an impact to our personal health. This includes the increased rates of asthma exacerbations from air pollution and the growing epidemic of diabetes and coronary heart disease from our penchant to indulge in a meat-centred Western diet.

It is perhaps a relief then that mitigating climate change has the added effect of improving our health. In fact, the benefits can be more readily apparent when applied to our individual well- being as opposed to that of the planet.

There are many things that can we can do on a personal level. These activities do not need to be at the cutting edge of science, but rather more pragmatic day-to-day behavioural changes. These would include less aversion for the use of public transport, a reduction in the quantity of meat that we consume and decreasing the tendency to overuse air-conditioners. There are plenty of resources, especially over the Internet, from which one is able to reach for a comprehensive list of advice.

The Malaysian federal and state governments should also be more discriminating when taking up their roles in these matters.

From a healthcare point of view, appropriate resources should be allocated or obtained to serve areas that are most in need of assistance. It is a known contradiction that those who need the most healthcare input tend to be those who have the least access to it.

Plans should already be in place to ensure that our healthcare system is able to cope with any surge in capacity, and that we have improved surveillance mechanisms to detect changes in disease progression. It would also be useful to invest in training the workforce and encouraging further promotion of public health issues, as at the end of the day, changes will only be able to be implemented if there are sufficient public education and awareness.

More generically, policies can be implemented to help limit the effects of climate change as well as its detrimental effects on our health. These would include tax breaks for green entrepreneurship, promoting competition to boost the anaemic state of our public transport system and even gradually decreasing the subsidy that is given for fuel consumption.

The caveat is that these policies will need to be introduced in a step-wise and practical fashion; we will need to prevent the introduction of negative health effects such as exposure to traffic danger when crossing the road to the nearest LRT station.

Change is never easy and politicians might be reluctant to introduce changes that might displease the rakyat. Unfortunately, we will all have to bite the bullet soon and make the conscious decision to take steps to improve not only the state of our health, but the fragile state of our planet.

Although Lord Stern (who released an economic report of climate change for the UK government) has described the Copenhagen summit as the most important since the end of the Second World War, it is clear that we cannot rely on the actions of governments to push ahead with the agenda for change - at the end of the day, we should take individual responsibility for our actions and not leave it to the state

The writer is Healthcare Policy Fellow, Malaysia Think Tank .