This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: As sea levels creep higher in the Pacific, salt leaches into the soil and reduces the land available to grow food. Ocean warming is damaging coral reefs, reducing fish stocks, and salinity has tainted freshwater supplies.
As a result, Pacific communities are being forced to turn to imported food, which is often high in calories but low in nutrients. And this, along with a myriad of intersecting social, cultural and economic factors, has led to a rise in the rates of chronic diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Ahead of the upcoming U.N. climate conference COP31, discussions by government ministers, civil society advocates, multilateral agencies and academics at the pre-COP meeting in Fiji and Tuvalu last month emphasized the importance of health for those on the front line of the climate crisis.
Women in the Pacific are disproportionately responsible for family care, and the burden of food and water insecurity falls most heavily on their shoulders. Women at the pre-COP meeting told us replanting crops after extreme weather is increasing their domestic burden, contributing to exhaustion and mental ill-health. But these women are not passive bystanders.
Again and again in Fiji we heard incredible stories of women developing and implementing their own climate solutions. Australia can learn from their leadership and make health a central part of the global agenda at COP31. This year's summit is being promoted as the "implementation COP": acting on existing promises (rather than making new ones) to keep the critical threshold of 1.5°C of warming within reach.
There will be a push to increase climate finance—funding for activities to mitigate or adapt to the impacts of climate change. But health needs to be higher up the agenda. Global warming is worsening chronic diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer, which are the primary cause of death and disability, both in the Pacific and globally.
As global warming amplifies inequity, it is women who bear the greatest health burden. The Pacific has the highest rates of these chronic diseases in the world. They are responsible for 87% of deaths in the Western Pacific region, with mortality rates in Kiribati five times those of Singapore, and yet they have been largely absent from the wider COP agenda.
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