Small island nations face climate-induced ‘catastrophe’, warn experts

First comprehensive study on health and climate change in small island developing states lays bare impact of the crisis and calls for action from richer countries

The 65 million people living in the world’s small island nations face “catastrophe” from the health impacts of climate breakdown, say experts behind a Lancet Countdown report.

Heatwaves, drought, insect-borne diseases and extreme weather are getting worse because of the climate crisis, putting lives and livelihoods at risk, found the report, the first comprehensive analysis of the state of climate change and health in island states.

More than a million people living in low-lying areas of small island developing states (Sids) in the Pacific, Caribbean, Atlantic, Indian Ocean and South China Sea regions are likely to be displaced as sea levels rise, the Lancet Countdown Centre for Small Island Developing States said.

It also warned of increasing food insecurity as the marine environment is destabilised, driving higher rates of chronic health problems such as diabetes and obesity.

Tackling the problem “requires international action from high-income countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”, the centre said in its report, published in the Lancet Global Health, noting that Sids themselves collectively have low emissions.

“One of the main challenges is heat,” said the centre’s director, Georgiana Gordon-Strachan, based at the University of the West Indies, who led the team of 35 authors. “It affects health physiologically, but it also affects the marine environment, which is a big part of the Sids culture [and] diet; it affects extreme weather events, because once the oceans are warm, that heat energy feeds into more monster storms and storms that develop very, very quickly.”

Heat also affects labour capacity, with people able to work safely for fewer hours outside, she said. The report found that 4.4bn work hours were potentially lost due to extreme heat in 2023 across the states – 71% more than the average between 1991 and 2000.

The islands are facing “an exacerbation of an already dire situation” said Gordon-Strachan, “where heat is becoming more intense and all the ramifications of a warming world are affecting us in a serious way, from extreme events to loss of homes, loss of lives and livelihoods”.

Loss of homes, she added, did not feel like adequate words to describe the potential for some islands to go underwater entirely.

Gordon-Strachan called it “a clarion call for action to protect and promote health from the foreboding consequences of climate change that have already reached our shores. What are we waiting for?”

The Cop29 environmental summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November ended in disappointment for many of the world’s developing nations, and Sids negotiators at one point walked out of talks in frustration and threatened to leave altogether.

Another author, Roannie Ng Shiu of the University of Auckland, added: “The concerning trajectory of these findings warns us that the loss and damage already felt as a result of climate change will worsen to the point of catastrophe without concerted and ambitious action.”

Changes in temperature, rainfall and humidity have increased the potential for dengue transmission by a third since the 1950s, the report found. And as climate breakdown affects agriculture and fishing, it warned of “worrying long-term trends towards import-dependent processed diets” that raise the risk of health problems, exacerbated by the reduced potential for outdoor exercise as heat levels increase.

It highlighted Sids as some of the loudest voices calling for attention on the links between health and climate change. At the UN general assembly in 2022, 64% of statements on the topic came from their leaders.

However, it warned that the health systems in those countries were not ready for the impacts of the climate crisis. Only eight of 59 countries studied had a national climate and health strategy, and most lacked the climate projections necessary to complete vulnerability and risk assessments.

The authors also warned that a lack of high-quality data in Sids was hampering efforts to monitor progress and identify vulnerable populations. Gordon-Strachan said it was particularly hard to track the impact of climate breakdown on mental health.

Cover photo: Omar Soloman and Keysha Hill survey the wreckage of Soloman’s shop in Old Harbour, Jamaica, after it was destroyed by Hurricane Beryl in July. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty