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Geoengineering to inject aerosols into stratospheres could have adverse effects, potentially leading to an increase in tropical malaria.
As geoengineering plans to decrease climate change may pose greater challenges than solutions to global climate issues, the health of billions could be at risk.
Malaria kills approximately 200 million people annually. Over 627,000 deaths in 2020 – with these cases still rising. Climate change is increasing tropical malaria. This is due to mosquitos adapting to warmer climates that are affecting the most rapidly affected tropics.
“The potential for geoengineering to reduce risks from climate change remains poorly understood, and it could introduce a range of new risks to people and ecosystems.”
Georgetown University Medical Center scientists have made a new discovery., Researchers set out to discover how geoengineering works.Climate change could make it more difficult to get certain infectious diseases, like malaria.
Solar radiation management can help mitigate climate impact
Solar radiation management (SRM) – an intervention that hypothesises emergency actions aimed at reducing the dangerous impacts of climate change – has been often debated as a method to reduce climate injustice, but it has minimal research discussing the potential impacts on health that it could have.
One action that has been proposed is injecting aerosols into the stratosphere that reflect incoming sunlight, thereby temporarily “pausing” global warming. Researchers are now realizing that this could have serious consequences for people already suffering from tropical malaria.
Colin Carlson, PhD, said: “The implications of the study for decision-making are significant. Geoengineering could save lives but the assumption that it will be equally effective for everyone might put some countries at risk when it comes to making decisions.
“If Geoengineering is about protecting people on the frontlines against climate change, we should be able to add up the risks and benefits – especially in terms of neglected health burdens, such as mosquito-borne disease.”
Globally, the risk of malaria is expected to shift between different regions
The team of researchers, from the United States, Bangladesh, South Africa, and Germany, used climate models to simulate what malaria transmission could look like in two future scenarios, with medium or high levels of global warming – both with and without geoengineering.
The models showed which temperatures were most conducive to transmission by the Anopheles Identification of the population of mosquitosTransmission is possible in certain areas.
Both high- and medium-warming scenarios predicted that malaria risk would shift between regions. However, simulations showed that in the high warming scenario, a billion more people were at high risk of getting malaria in the geoengineered world.
Due to malaria transmission peaking at 25°C, cooling the tropics using geoengineering might ultimately increase malaria risk in some places relative to an alternative future, but might also increase risk in the present day – both outcomes require better international cooperation to tackle tropical malaria and climate change.
When discussing climate change strategies, there is a need to use better geopolitics
The researchers highlight that one of the most surprising findings was the scale of potential trade-offs between regions, where in both scenarios, geoengineering could actually substantially reduce malaria risk in the Indian subcontinent even compared to the present day – however, this protective effect could be offset with an increase in risk in southeast Asia.
This can make it more difficult to make global decisions regarding climate intervention and human-health.
Christopher Trisos, PhD, said: “The potential for geoengineering to reduce risks from climate change remains poorly understood, and it could introduce a range of new risks to people and ecosystems.”
Carlson finalised: “We’re so early in this process that the conversation is still about increasing Global South leadership in geoengineering research. Our highlights that the frontlines of climate injustice aren’t one monolithic bloc, especially when it comes to health.
“On a planet that’s too hot for humans, it also gets too hot for the malaria parasite. Cooling the planet might be an emergency option to save lives, but it would also reverse course on those declines.”
