Human health as a motivator for climate change mitigation: results from four European high-income countries

Meat consumption and current livestock farming practices have a multitude of detrimental impacts on climate change and human health. Today, livestock farming is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). The manure and chemicals used in livestock farms also seep into the water supplies and degrade the quality of water. Furthermore, livestock require a vast expanse of land for grazing and feeding, which leads to deforestation and habitat fragmentation. High meat consumption and its associated effects have also been implicated in causing various health complications in humans such as a higher prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and an overall increase in mortality. Transitioning towards plant-based diets could not only mitigate the impacts of climate change, but it could also improve human health. This paper assesses the efficacy of transitioning towards plant-based diets and the overall benefits and challenges of this transition. This literature review is crucial as it compiles recent data about climate change and various studies about plant-based dietary transitions, as well as their impacts on the environment, human health, and climate change mitigation efforts.

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Climate action for health and wellbeing in cities: a protocol for the systematic development of a database of peer-reviewed studies using machine learning methods

Wellcome Open Research ◽

10.12688/wellcomeopenres.16570.1 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 6 ◽

pp. 50

Author(s):

Kristine Belesova ◽

Max Callaghan ◽

Jan C Minx ◽

Felix Creutzig ◽

Catalina Turcu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Machine Learning ◽

Human Health ◽

Climate Change Mitigation ◽

Learning Methods ◽

Health And Wellbeing ◽

Machine Learning Methods ◽

Mitigation And Adaptation ◽

Systematic Development ◽

Change Mitigation

Cities produce more than 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Action by cities is therefore crucial for climate change mitigation as well as for safeguarding the health and wellbeing of their populations under climate change. Many city governments have made ambitious commitments to climate change mitigation and adaptation and implemented a range of actions to address them. However, a systematic record and synthesis of the findings of evaluations of the effect of such actions on human health and wellbeing is currently lacking. This, in turn, impedes the development of robust knowledge on what constitutes high-impact climate actions of benefit to human health and wellbeing, which can inform future action plans, their implementation and scale-up. The development of a systematic record of studies reporting climate and health actions in cities is made challenging by the broad landscape of relevant literature scattered across many disciplines and sectors, which is challenging to effectively consolidate using traditional literature review methods. This protocol reports an innovative approach for the systematic development of a database of studies of climate change mitigation and adaptation actions implemented in cities, and their benefits (or disbenefits) for human health and wellbeing, derived from peer-reviewed academic literature. Our approach draws on extensive tailored search strategies and machine learning methods for article classification and tagging to generate a database for subsequent systematic reviews addressing questions of importance to urban decision-makers on climate actions in cities for human health and wellbeing.

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