One Health and climate change—we need to get the ethics right

It is incontrovertible that climate change and associated environmental degradation present serious threats to public health. Extreme heat, antimicrobial resistance, the zoonotic transfer of pathogens, shifting disease vectors, food and water instability, and desertification—all are exacerbated by the climate emergency, all with serious implications for global public health. Take just one of these threats—the likely impact of the climate emergency on emerging infectious diseases. A 2022 paper in Nature Climate Change1 found that 58% (218 out of 375) of infectious diseases pathogenic in human beings have been aggravated by “climatic hazards” linked to global greenhouse gas emissions. By comparison, only 16% of diseases were “at times diminished” by the climate emergency.In response, many health professionals and policy makers are looking with increasing interest at a “One Health” approach to combating the health impacts of the climate emergency. Defined by the World Health Organization as a “joint effort of various disciplines…
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