The Health Emergency Hiding in Rising Seas

Sea-level rise is often spoken about in centimetres, forecasts and future scenarios. But what if we understood it as a health emergency that is already reshaping lives, harming bodies and minds, and displacing entire communities?

This week, as a landmark Lancet Commission launches, Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac argue that sea-level rise must be understood not just as a climate threat, but as a health crisis currently unfolding. And, as co-chair of the Lancet Commission on Sea-Level Rise, Health and Justice, Christiana brings us inside the thinking behind this urgent new effort.

Christiana speaks to commissioners ‘Ofa Kaisamy, Professor Anne Poelina and Dr Sandro Demaio, who paint a vivid picture of what happens before and as the water arrives. This is a story of food insecurity, damaged clinics and hospitals, disease, displacement, trauma, and the loss of ancestral knowledge and cultural continuity. But it also points to an opportunity to finally see sea-level rise in fully human terms, with those on the frontlines shaping the response.

What changes when we stop treating rising seas as a distant environmental problem and start recognising them as a present health emergency? And what might become possible if the people most affected are no longer treated as victims, but as leaders?

Learn More:

🌊 Read The Lancet Commission launch paper on sea-level rise, health and justice.

🩺 Read Christiana’s opinion piece on health and sea-level rise in the Guardian

🏝️ Explore WHO Western Pacific’s work on climate change and health in the Pacific

📈 Go deeper with the IPCC on sea-level rise and low-lying coasts and islands.

🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes on SpeakPipe

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Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks

Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan

Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford

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