From Environmental Risk to Human Security: Climate Change and Public Health

In this commentary, BIPSS Research Assistant Jannatul Toba Jhumu examines the evolving relationship between climate change and public health, arguing that climate change has moved beyond an environmental concern to become a core human security challenge. She highlights how rising temperatures, shifting disease patterns, food and water insecurity, mental health stressors, and climate-induced displacement are already contributing to significant and uneven health burdens worldwide. The commentary further explores how structural barriers limit effective climate-health responses, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations in low- and middle-income countries. Toba concludes that addressing the climate crisis requires a fundamental shift toward a health-centered human security framework that integrates equity, resilience, and long-term policy planning into global climate governance.