The link between climate change and human health, and what
it may mean for insurance claims
COVID-19 has been described by Australia's Prime Minister as
our "greatest challenge since WWII." Although
there are other thoughts, the most widely-discussed theory is that
COVID-19 originated in bats and was passed on to pangolins that
were then illegally sold at the Wuhan wet market. What is less
discussed, though, is the connection between environmental
destruction, climate change and human disease.
Scientists have long warned that there is a connection between
environmental destruction, climate change and the spread of
disease. The link seems simple – rising temperatures, floods
and extreme weather events, directly caused and/or exacerbated by
climate change, create the perfect incubation hubs for infectious
diseases and their hosts, which include mosquitos (malaria), birds
(avian influenzas), rodents (plague) and bats (ebola and
COVID-19)1. For example, there is
