• Energy Research

This article argues that human health has become a key consideration in recent global reports on climate change and biodiversity produced by various international organisations; however, greater attention must be given to the unequal health impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss around the world and the different health adaptation measures that are urgently required.

For the Chinese, French, German, and Spanish translations of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section.

AbstractPublic support for climate policies is important for their efficacy, yet little is known about how different framings of climate change affect public support for climate policies around the world. Here we report findings from a conjoint experiment of 7,500 adults in five countries – China, Germany, India, UK, and USA – to identify climate messages that elicit greater support for policies to tackle climate change. Messages were randomly varied on four attributes: positive (opportunity) or negative (threat) framings, theme (health, environment, economy, migration), scale (individual, community, national, global), and time (current, 2030, 2050). We find that a positive frame, health and environmental frames, and global and immediate frames bolster public support. We examine differences between countries, and across groups within countries – particularly focusing on the effect of these frames among individuals that are unconcerned about climate change. Among this group, positive and health frames increase the likelihood of support for climate policies, indicating the relevance of these frames for shifting policy preferences for different audience groups.

The work of MSo and RH has been performed within the scope of H2020 project EXHAUSTION (grant number 820655) and Academy of Finland HEATCOST (grant number 334798). JMA acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and State Research Agency through the Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2019–23 programme (CEX2018-000806-S), and support from the Generalitat de Catalunya through the CERCA programme. JB acknowledges funding from the Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCIU) under grant agreement number RYC2018-025446-I (programme Ramón y Cajal). The computations of the mechanistic dengue-models (MOS and HS) were enabled by resources provided by the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at HPC2N. JR has been awarded a Chair in Artificial Intelligence in the Research of Infectious Diseases Impacted by Climate Change provided by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in the framework of the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship endowed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. HA, MQ-Z, and SJL were supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 865564 (European Research Council Consolidator Grant EARLY-ADAPT). JP was supported by Academy of Finland projects PS4A and ALL-Impress. The Lancet Countdown in Europe received invaluable support from Shuzhou Yuan, Ran Zhang, Krishnamoorthy Manohara, and Reed Garvin (Data Science Lab, Hertie School, Germany), Tom de Groeve and Peter Salamon (European Commission), and Raúl Fernando Méndez Turrubiates (ISGlobal, Barcelona, Spain). We also thank Wenjia Cai, Shihui Zhang, and Jiyao Zhao (Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China) for their technical advice.

Record-breaking temperatures were recorded across the globe in 2023. Without climate action, adverse climate-related health impacts are expected to worsen worldwide, affecting billions of people. Temperatures in Europe are warming at twice the rate of the global average, threatening the health of populations across the continent and leading to unnecessary loss of life. The Lancet Countdown in Europe was established in 2021, to assess the health profile of climate change aiming to stimulate European social and political will to implement rapid health-responsive climate mitigation and adaptation actions. In 2022, the collaboration published its indicator report, tracking progress on health and climate change via 33 indicators and across five domains.