Climate Change and Health: Geopolitical Perspectives

The interlinkages between climate change on the one hand, and security and geopolitics on the other hand, have been altered and redefined in multiple ways, driving the international community to think beyond traditional notions of both security and the phenomenon of climate change itself. Neither geopolitics and security are unaffected by socio-ecological changes; nor can climate or weather be delinked from the changing social, political, economic, cultural, and other factors that are entrenched in life on Earth. This chapter examines public health discourses and practices through a broader lens of human well-being and human security, an assessment that considers the wider systemic causes of the challenges the world faces today, starkly illustrated by the COVID-19 pandemic. It also provides an Indian perspective on various geopolitical and domestic developments and their interconnections with the nexus between climate change and health policies, with an eye on the different stakeholders, disciplines, approaches, and tools required to address the combined and intersecting challenges posed by them.