Environmental Health Sciences

3/31/2010

ClimAID Synthesis Report Now Available

ClimAID, or the Integrated Assessment for Effective Climate Change Adaptation Strategies in New York State, aims to provide decision-makers with the information required to effectively reduce vulnerability to climate change in New York State. 

The report informs the development of adaptation strategies by drawing from local experiences and scientific knowledge and encourages decision-makers to address climate change impacts in a range of sectors: Water Resources, Coastal Zones, Ecosystems, Agriculture, Energy, Transportation, Telecommunications, and Public Health.

The public health impacts of climate are varied and wide-ranging.  They include direct impacts, such as heat-related mortality due to exposure to extreme heat, and indirect impacts, such as changes in the range of vector-borne diseases (i.e. West Nile virus in mosquitoes in NY).  The report stresses the need to integrate climate adaptation measures into existing health programs and offers suggestions to improve adaptive capacity on multiple scales, particularly emphasizing the potential co-benefits for health that can be realized through carbon mitigation activities.

Health chapter authors include Patrick Kinney, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and the Director of the Climate and Health Program at Columbia; Perry Sheffield, Pediatric Fellow at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine; Rick Ostfeld, a Disease Ecologist at the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies; and Jessie Carr, a recent graduate of the Climate and Health Program at Columbia. 

The full report, prepared for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), will be released in the coming months.  The synthesis report can be found at http://www.nyserda.org/programs/environment/emep/clim-aid-synthesis-draft.pdf