A/HRC/32/23 increasing the vulnerability of poor populations particularly in developing countries, many of which also have a weak health infrastructure.16 2. Impacts of air pollution 14. Air pollution is not caused by climate change, but climate change can exacerbate some forms of air pollution, and the sources of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants are often the same. Promoting access to clean energy would simultaneously reduce levels of greenhouse gas emissions and other harmful pollutants. Given that household air pollution and ambient air pollution are estimated to cause nearly 4.3 million deaths and 3.7 million deaths per year, respectively,17 this would have substantial health benefits. Air pollutants have also been linked to health impacts, such as cardiovascular and respiratory disease and autism,18 which can affect quality of life and labour productivity. 3. Extreme weather events and natural disasters 15. Direct impacts on health are caused by crises such as hurricanes, heatwaves, flooding, landslides, drought and wildfires, among others. Climate change contributes to the increasing frequency and intensity of these events and their associated health impacts, which include injury, disability, death and infectious disease transmission. For example, climate change is expected to enhance coastal flooding hazards through both a rise in sea levels and the increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. In addition to mortality, flooding can cause injuries, infections, mental health problems, loss of income and crops, and damage to water and sanitation facilities and other infrastructure with resultant health impacts such as increased transmission of vector-borne diseases.19 16. Between 2005 and 2015, more than 1.5 billion people were affected by disasters, with women, children and people in vulnerable situations being disproportionately affected.20 The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre has estimated that over the past seven years 22.5 million people have been displaced each year by climate or weatherrelated disasters.21 17. The impacts of these crises are disproportionately felt by persons in vulnerable situations. For example, when there are gendered inequalities in access to economic, social and cultural rights, women suffer from higher rates of mortality as a consequence of natural disasters.22 Further, a direct correlation has been observed between women’s status in society and their likelihood of receiving adequate health care in times of disaster and environmental stress.23 4. Expanding disease vectors 18. Climate change helps expand disease vectors in a number of ways. Natural disasters destroy water and sanitation infrastructure, leading to outbreaks of water and insect-borne 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 6 United Nations Development Programme input. See WHO, “Climate change and health”. See M.F. Cortez, “Air pollution exposure in pregnancy linked to autism in study” (Bloomberg, 18 December 2014). WHO, Quantitative Risk Assessment. United Nations Development Programme input. Global Estimates 2015: People Displaced by Disasters, p. 8 (July 2015). E. Neumayer and T. Plümper, “The gendered nature of natural disasters: the impact of catastrophic events on the gender gap in life expectancy, 1981-2002”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 97 (3), pp. 551-566 (2007). See WHO, “Gender inequities in environmental health”, document EUR/5067874/151 (2008).