To the common man, climate change may mean just extreme weather, usually characterised by floods or drought.
Even images of people struggling to explain, in Kiswahili, how a storm messed them up, with visible losses and damages on their property, have ended up in social media as mere entertainment, reducing the weight of the appeal for permanent solutions.
Such conversations soon fade, except among victims, some who are displaced. For those in flood and drought prone areas, this is a common occurrence.
Sadly, at any one time it floods in one region, another suffers drought or heat waves. Enough times, prolonged drought has preceded deadly flooding in arid and semi-arid areas.
In Kenya, there have been seasons of milk or potato glut, while people in other counties endure famine.
Even with evidence of climate induced human suffering, the health aspect of it remains remote, or is viewed independently. Could it be true that climate change is now a public health crisis? Who are the most vulnerable to this crisis?
The climate crisis touches every aspect of our lives, from food production, quality of water, air and soil. When any of these is affected, the most vulnerable are those whose immune system is compromised, or least developed. Children fall here.
And now the World Bank warns that the crisis could deepen, and devastatingly compromise the health and well-being of “children, women, minorities, and people already struggling to survive on the margins”.
For this reason and the fact that climate change does not affect everyone in the same manner, the link between climate change and health must not be overlooked.
This is critical for children, whose bodies and immune systems are yet to fully develop, making them most at risk of extreme heat, pollution, hunger, and disease.
According to a US Centre for Biotechnology Information, in 2000, there were at least 150,000 deaths linked to climate induced diseases.
Twenty five years later, and with the climate crisis worsening daily, we can only expect the worst. The science body says up to 88 per cent of global climate induced disease burden was borne by children under five years. This necessitates serious action.
When a woman in an ASAL region cannot feed her children due to crop failure, she is not only dealing with hunger, but also risk of malnutrition.
More temperatures are causing spread of vector-borne diseases beyond their usual habitats, to highlands, because even up there it is becoming conducive for mosquitoes to thrive. Rising temperatures also mean more heatwaves and air pollution.
According to World Health Organisation estimates, climate change may be responsible for 250,000 extra deaths annually, between 2030 and 2050, majority of them children. The deaths are expected to stem from malnutrition, diarrhea, heat waves and vector-borne diseases.
As we ponder the effects, humans have the key to gradually reduce these risks. Calls to stop new or expansion of preexisting fossil fuel plants, end deforestation and any other activities that worsen global warming, must be enhanced. It calls for collaboration between climate action champions and health professionals, who have direct access to patients.
Meanwhile, governments and institutions must treat climate change as a child health emergency.
It must allocate resources and strengthen policies to deal with it as a matter of urgency, through better emergency response systems, also with a focus on the low-income earning communities.
For the future of humanity, future generations, leaders of tomorrow and our offspring, we must tame the monster that threatens well-being of children.
By Lynet Otieno