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Portrayal of ‘lived realities’ of CC & health
View(s):- 2025 Report of the Lancet Countdown launched on February 2
By Kumudini Hettiarachchi
What can we do as individuals and what can we do together with regard to Climate Change (CC) and follow-up action?
This was the critical point raised by the Founding Director of the Center for Planetary Health (CePH) Prof. Tharanga Thoradeniya at the Sri Lanka launch of ‘The 2025 Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and CC: CC action offers a lifeline’ on February 2.
CePH, part of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo (UCFM), facilitated the launch of the report.
Prof. Dr. Meisam Tabatabaei joining online to give the highlights of the report
The delayed launch told its own tale and the urgent need to combat CC and its severe adverse impacts. Scheduled to be released last year, what intervened was Cyclone Ditwah which brought in its wake landslides, floods, death, injury, loss of homes and businesses across Sri Lanka.
Pointing out that it was not just a report launch, Prof. Thoradeniya said it was a moment of responsibility. The report makes one message unmistakably clear – CC is already affecting health. In Sri Lanka, this is lived experience, from urban communities exposed to heat, pollution and inequality, to food insecurity after floods or droughts and to the spread of vector-borne diseases. It is also the lived reality of Ditwah. These are not projections, these are realities.
‘The 2025 Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change’
With regard to CePH, she said: “As we engaged with global climate and health evidence, we recognised a critical gap. Much of the available data are not sufficiently country-specific and do not fully reflect Sri Lanka’s unique contexts, vulnerabilities and lived realities. This realization led to the establishment of CePH and to the development of a nationally relevant research agenda. Our work focuses on planetary health research – connecting climate, ecosystems, food systems and health.”
Prof. Tharanga Thoradeniya
While underscoring that CePH’s mission has been clear to place youth at the centre of action, she also said that the report gives data, but data alone do not create change. Change happens when evidence informs policy, policy empowers communities and communities – especially young people – are enabled to act. This is the role of CePH.
Focusing on the highlights, of the 2025 Report, Lead Collaborator Prof. Dr. Meisam Tabatabaei of the Universiti Malaysia Terengganu said the five working groups focused on: Health Impacts of CC; Health Adaptation; Health Benefits of Mitigation; Economic Impacts and Transition; and Public and Political Context.
CePH Deputy Director Dr. Roshan Hewapathirana launching the Planetary Health Dashboard
Joining the event online, he said:
- CC inaction is costing lives and livelihoods and harming the economy – millions of people have died needlessly due to fossil fuel dependence, growing greenhouse gas emissions and failure to adapt. Health risks and impacts of CC are worse than ever before across 13 of 20 impact indicators. Inadequate CC action is undermining livelihoods and straining economies – further harming health.
- Backsliding on CC action threatens to worsen health harms and economic strains – fossil fuel investments persist, adaptation finance remains insufficient and energy-related emissions have reached unprecedented levels. If fossil fuel dependence continues, the limits of adaptation will be breached – health systems, cooling infrastructure and disaster response will not keep pace with escalating risks.
- CC action offers a lifeline – millions of lives could be saved with urgent action to phase out fossil fuels, reduce emissions and adapt. Countries leading the transition are already enjoying health and economic gains. Meanwhile, local and grassroots leadership is building momentum for a healthier future, from the bottom up.
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‘Planet Pulse’ – the Student Society for Planetary Health under CePH being launched by Ashvini Chandrakumar representing medical undergraduates
With specific reference to Sri Lanka on some indicators, Prof. Tabatabaei said when looking at labour capacity in 2024, heat exposure resulted in a loss of >2,300,000,000 potential labour hours. Heat posed a threat to workers in the country and resulted in 2.3 billion potential hours of labour being lost. This corresponded to around US$ 1.8 billion in potential lost earnings, equivalent to around 2% of Sri Lanka’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
On the searing effects of droughts, he said that CC increases their frequency and severity, which threaten sanitation, water security and food production and disrupt power generation and fluvial transport. For Sri Lanka, the percent of area with at least one month of extreme drought rose to 56% (average) in the 2015-24 period. In the 1990-99 period, it was 38% (average).
Globally, 638-720 million people faced hunger in 2024 and 2.6 billion (about one-third of the global population) were unable to afford a healthy diet in 2022. The higher frequency of heatwave days and drought months in 2023 compared to 1981-2010, was associated with 123.7 million more people experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity across 124 countries, according to the report.
This is while changing climatic conditions are affecting the transmission of infectious diseases of public health concern. A case in point was the average climate-defined transmission potential of dengue by Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti, increasing by 48.5% and 11.6%, respectively, from 1951-60 to 2015-24.
In Sri Lanka, Prof. Tabatabaei stated that the average R0 (a mathematical term indicating how contagious an infectious disease is) for dengue transmission had been 4.29 from 1951-60 and 4.78 from 2015-24, recording a percentage change of 11.49%.
From the left (first row): Vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo, Prof. Indika Karunathilake; Health Ministry Secretary, Dr. Anil Jasinghe; health expert Dr. Palitha Abeykoon; CePH Director Prof. Tharanga Thoradeniya; Dean of the Faculty of Medicine – University of Colombo, Prof. Vajira Dissanayake; and Sri Lanka Medical Association President, Dr. Manilka Sumanatilleke
Spotlighting that energy systems were the largest source of greenhouse gases and major contributors to air pollution, he said that although the share of fossil fuels in the global total energy supply declined since 2016, they still accounted for about 68% of global emissions in 2023, with energy-sector emissions continuing to rise.
According to him coal was the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel and a major source of toxic air pollution, making its phase-out vital for health and climate. As of 2022, 34.6% of Sri Lanka’s electricity came from coal, while 8.8% came from renewables. “The coal use for electricity has grown quickly since 2010. As of 2022, nearly 15% (14.8%) of Sri Lanka’s total energy supply came from coal, while only 1.2% came from renewables.”
Moving onto mortality (death) from ambient air pollution, he said that exposure to air pollution increases the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, neurological disorders and adverse pregnancy outcomes.
“Mortality from fossil fuel-derived particulate matter (PM2.5) in Low HDI (Human Development Index) countries increased by 13%,” he said, reiterating that in 2022, there were over 8,000 deaths attributable to anthropogenic sources of PM2.5 in Sri Lanka. This was a 10.5% increase in deaths from 2010. The mortality rate (which accounts for population) increased by 5.3% with 38 deaths per 100,000 in 2022.
The Planetary Health Dashboard and ‘Planet Pulse’ – the Student Society for Planetary Health, meanwhile, were also launched during the function.
The participants included Health Ministry Secretary, Dr. Anil Jasinghe; Vice Chancellor of the University of Colombo, Prof. Indika Karunathilake; Dean of the Faculty of Medicine – University of Colombo, Prof. Vajira Dissanayake; and Sri Lanka Medical Association President, Dr. Manilka Sumanatilleke.
| Challenges in battle against CC A reality check – looking at the negatives stacked up against Climate Action in comparison to the positives – came from an expert. This was exacerbated by the European Union (EU), one of the main advocates of Climate Action, being weakened and constrained in supporting developing countries in this arena; major conflicts in the Middle East and Europe; and an economic downfall being faced by countries including “With the EU having its own economic problems, there is a drawback in the EU providing much-needed funding for Climate Action to developing countries. This is aggravated by the conflicts in the Middle East and Europe – when there is war at the doorstep, the No. 1 priority is not CC and Climate Action,” the expert said, explaining that when countries are facing an economic downturn, attention is taken away from CC. Then meting out Climate Justice is not easy. The expert urged that developing countries need climate finance and climate technology to turn green. Therefore, developed countries historically have a responsibility, as they have guided the world towards this level, to provide funds across global trans-boundaries for Climate Action. | |
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