Climate migration will inevitably be one of the most important extensions of the climate crisis on the planet, triggering knock-on effects due to mass population movements. This is explained to the Athenian-Macedonian News Agency by the international advisor to state and city governments on health and sustainability, former director of Policy and Governance for Health and Wellness (European Region of the World Health Organization), professor, Dr. Agis D. Tsouros.

According to the most recent UNHCR data, an average of 21.5 million people have been forcibly displaced each year since 2008 due to weather-related hazards (such as floods, storms, fires, extreme temperatures) . The migration crisis seems inevitable, even though climate migration will not occur in the immediate future, emphasizes Mr. Tsouros and notes that states should prepare for the “chain situations that will be triggered”.

“The EU has failed to have a single policy on the issue of mass population movements. It is not in the immediate future, but if we are not proactive and do not invest in what will happen we may be faced with major social crises. We need to be ready, we have to invest in it not only on paper”, Mr. Tsouros points out to APE-MPE. As he underlines, the key word is resilience, and states should place special emphasis on it. “We need to focus on the need to realize that the concept of preparation has a political strategy and dimension. The key word is resilience, i.e. how can societies prepare with plans, with simulations, with structures with personnel with investments, with systems to respond to such phenomena, but also with a citizenry that will be much more active and not a passive receiver of messages, that participates in decisions especially at the local level of societies, with abilities, skills, information. Participating in decisions means that we increase social capital and create opportunities for social empowerment. Thus, we can build levels of resilience that are a prerequisite to being able to live with such threats. It is necessary to invest in non-genuine”, notes Mr. Tsouros.

With many years of experience in the fields of health policies and governance, healthy cities, equity, prevention, health promotion and public health systems, Dr. Tsouros enjoys international recognition for his work. During his 27-year career at the World Health Organization, he also had responsibility for key areas such as chronic diseases, vulnerable populations, environmental health, and migrant health, while leading the development of the global movement ” Healthy Cities” and the European Strategy for Health and Well-being – Health 2020. By thoroughly studying the effects of the climate crisis, Mr. Tsouros finds that the imbalances caused in the environment due to climate change can create the conditions and conditions for new epidemics and pandemics appear with much greater frequency.

The climate crisis will lead to more frequent pandemics

“The climate crisis creates imbalances in the environment, resulting in the creation of conditions and conditions for the transmission and emergence of new epidemics and pandemics at a much higher frequency than we knew. These situations are essentially facilitated,” he says characteristically.

As he explains, the risks from the climate crisis appear in many different ways. “Extreme weather events, for example, have directly or indirectly terrifying effects on health, but also on the quality of the air we breathe, on water, its quality and quantity, on food, on its quality (safety) but also on production, in crops. We may end up having famines in parts of the planet due to dehydration, it will not be possible to have proper agriculture. And then there is the issue of communicable diseases. We are becoming more and more vulnerable and within this equation there is the risk of a new pandemic. The reason is that the balance in the system is destroyed. So we should not see the climate crisis one-dimensionally. The most correct way to see it is to simultaneously examine the balance in the environment, in human communities, as well as the disturbances within this system”, notes Dr. A. Tsouros.

According to Mr. Tsouros, the threat of the climate crisis, beyond the economic and social dimensions it takes, simultaneously creates enormous insecurity and uncertainty. “People who live in poverty, people who may be marginalized, the socially vulnerable are exposed to multiple risks,” points out Mr. Tsouros.

Climate crisis and mental health

The climate crisis is burdening everyone’s mental health, especially young people. “Mental health is not only affected by climate change but think when a natural disaster happens what a huge impact it will have on people’s mental health. It’s a huge stress, a huge threat to mental health in a world that’s uncertain, out of balance in every way, economically and geopolitically and by the imbalance we have in the climate. What we said during the pandemic that we manage the unknown is also true now. Here we are dealing with a condition that can be the generative cause, the source of much suffering. In the midst of all this, one lives with a permanent anxiety, stress, eco-anxiety, which is the anxiety created by this threat. These threats aren’t exactly invisible, but there’s something unexpected about them. It keeps you in an uncertain alertness, even how you think about tomorrow and the day after tomorrow of your life”, underlines Mr. Tsouros.

According to Mr. Tsouros, mitigating the effects of the climate crisis can be achieved both by creating resilient societies and by developing an integrated plan for public health that will include everyone. Coordinating from 2020 (as president of the scientific committee) the preparation of a Plan for Public Health in the 21st century, an initiative of the Bodosakis Foundation, Mr. Tsouros points out that a large investment is needed in a state public health system that will promote prevention, protection and crisis management. “After the pandemic crisis, every country had to rethink, redefine the content, quality, efficiency of the health system. These lessons we have learned are turning into political will for a public health, strong cross-sectoral government that will be based on the values ​​of the principles of sustainability of the United Nations, equity, accessibility and these go hand in hand with the climate crisis. It is the right time to lay the foundations for public health, but also for systems that will protect us from pandemics and from other consequences of climate change in the future”, underlines Mr. Tsouros.