Climate change is an increasingly oppressive problem that affects every aspect of human existence, in every part of the world, even if there are those who claim the opposite, out of ignorance or political advantage. The causes are also to be found in human activities: reckless use of resources, no regard for the environment, few and insufficient policies to protect the planet. Today, however, it seems clear that climate change plays an important role in our quality of life.

WHO defines Quality of Life as an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations and concerns.

To prevent the impacts of climate change, European countries have developed national strategies, policies and measures to mitigate them. These include, for example, targets for greenhouse gas emissions in key sectors of the economy, promoting the use of renewable energy and low-carbon fuels or improving the efficiency of buildings.

And are developed in a serial of indicators. Indicators are expressed for the OECD and Eurostat

OCDE has created a Better Life Index which describes these topics of importance:

Housing
Income
Jobs
Community
Environment
Education
Civic Engagement
Health
Life Satisfaction
Safety
Work-Life Balance

EUROSTAT. QUALITY OF LIFE

Eurostat quality of life indicators is reduced to:

Material living conditions
Leisure
Social interactions
Economy security and physical safety
Governance and basic rights
Natural and living environment
Overall experience of lifewww.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/

Climate change and quality of life

Quality of life is a phenomenon that throughout its long history, and especially in recent times, has greatly changed in both form and meaning. It largely depends on the internal and external context, and especially on the level of development of the social community in which people live and work. In the last few decades, the indicators of Quality of Life have been more precisely identified as the basis for determining the level of each community.

Bearing in mind that improving the Quality of Life is the goal of every individual and every society, this means the inclusion of a number of influential factors, and the full involvement of all stakeholders. From a research point of view, the Quality of Life is a very challenging and demanding interdisciplinary field, multi-layered, multidimensional and complex, containing numerous and specific sociological, economic, cultural and other influences.

The study of the relationship and climate change in each country is sumarized in the next powerpoints that we created for the III Climate Change conference in Puerto Real in January 2023.

The impact of climate change and Quality of Life can be summarized for its greater impact:

Financial and material Living conditions

Loss of jobs, reduction in income, destruction or reduction in the value of physical and financial assets, reduction in yields of agriculture, reduction in fish catches, increase in prices of certain products, and others.

Employment

Loss of jobs due to physical destruction and reduced activity resulting from increased costs and the like.

Health

Increasing number of heart attacks and strokes, mental health problems, suicides, vector-borne infectious diseases, the emergence of new diseases and the spread of existing diseases into areas not previously recorded, reduction in the available amount of drinking water and food, and the like.

Economic and Physical Safety

Loss of human lives, destruction of property, destruction of transport infrastructure, loss of jobs, reduction of general welfare, migration and others.

Natural and Living environment

Extinction of numerous plant and animal species, soil erosion and habitat destruction, melting of glaciers, rising sea levels, more frequent wild fires and natural disasters.

Education

Destruction of the physical infrastructure of educational facilities resulting from natural disasters and the resulting temporary suspension of educational institutions, and the like.

Differences and similarities between countries

From the previous study we can summarize the differences between countries:

Greece

Greece has introduced a set of measures to better align environmental and energy policy with domestic technological development. Green infrastructure projects include the project to develop Ai Stratis as a "green island" – a good example of the development of mature renewable energy and energy-saving technologies.

he health impacts of urban air pollution continue to worsen

PM2.5 levels are 14.5 micrograms per cubic meter

67% of people say they are satisfied with water quality

Italy

The IQAir World Air Quality Report ranks Italy 67th among the most polluted countries. From 2005 to 2021, the Italian population's satisfaction with the environmental situation has progressively increased. Immediate actions to improve the quality of life are therefore necessary and must be implemented by individuals, governments and international organisations: using energy-efficient appliances, low-carbon means of transport, renewable energies, following a plant-based diet, paying attention to food waste, further reducing waste, planting trees and protecting forests, supporting sustainable agriculture. People need to be aware of their political choices so that governments actually implement environmental conservation measures and sensitise each individual to adopt good behavioural practices.

Portugal

The Water and Waste Services Regulation Authority launched a mobile app in 2014 to provide users with better information about water and waste services. The app lets citizens compare their services with those in 278 other municipalities across Portugal. They can also find information about how to reduce their own water consumption and waste production. This gives users the tools they need to demand better services from low performing operators and improve their general knowledge to make better environmental choices. By publicising poor performance and educating the public the app pressures operators to improve their services. The introduction of benchmarks has also incentivised improve efficiency and services.

The health impacts of urban air pollution continue to worsen

PM2.5 levels are 8.3 micrograms per cubic meter

89% of people say they are satisfied with water quality

Spain

Spain is the third largest European manufacturer of cars and the largest manufacturer of light commercial vehicles. Spain introduced the Efficient Vehicle Incentive Programme (PIVE) in 2012 to reduce the negative environmental impacts of vehicle use in Spain by modernising the nation's vehicle stock. The programme provided a subsidy to replace passenger vehicles over 10 years old and light commercial vehicles over 7 years old with high-efficiency models that use less fuel and CO2 emissions. As of mid-2014, 2 885 car dealers were registered as collaborators. Following the programme’s reported success, the programme was extended for four additional phases.

PIVE is expected to deliver significant pollution reduction benefits, including reduced emissions of CO2. Nearly 365 000 passenger cars and light commercial vehicles have already been replaced. An early evaluation estimates that the PIVE will result in fuel savings close to 127 million litres a year and reduce some 262 000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year. OECD/ITF analysis of the effectiveness of such replacement schemes underscores the need for targeted incentives and sufficient differentiation, including the need to control the type of replacement vehicle chosen.

The health impacts of urban air pollution continue to worsen

PM2.5 levels are 10 micrograms per cubic meter

76% of people say they are satisfied with water quality

Students opinion about their learning about climate change and quality of life

Vicente from Agrupamento de Escuolas Rio Novo do Principe-Cacia, Portugal:

It helped me to understand more about the climate by all the speeches and lessons that the teachers and specialists gave us so I could comment more about it at home , at school and even online. So I think it was very helpfull even at school for some works, assignements and oral presentations, like I said before.

Dorianna from Scuola secondaria di I Grado Ciro Sciana from Sicily:

This project has helped me to understand the relationship between climate change and quality of Life trought lessons of the student Foreigners and curriculum STEAM To raise the awareness of us students.

Eirina from 14th Junior High School of Patras

The participation in the LECLIC project helped me to understand that climate change has a big impact in our lives. Climate change can cause serious health problems that related respiratory or heart problems.That means that climate change can affect the quality of life to the worse and this is a very serious problem.

Paula from Colegio La Salle-Buen Consejo of Puerto Real

This topic is similar to the previous one [style of life] as climate change has a great influence on our daily habits, the quality is modified with respect to the consequences caused by it. Also, this project has made me think in general about the consequences that affect, more specifically, our lifestyle. A clear example, as I said in the previous question, would be the high temperatures, it would affect our sleeping hours, since we have a hard time in most cases to reconcile our sleep with our daily life.

Bibliographical references

EUROSTAT (31 October 2022). Quality of life indicators. Eurostat statistics explained. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Quality_of_life_indicators

Fabris, N. and Luburic, R. (2022). Quality system condition for sucessfull bussiness and competitveness. Proceedings of the X International Scientific Conference, Kaponik, file:///Users/anabayes/Downloads/FabrisNLuburiR-CLIMATECHANGEANDQUALITYOFLIFE.pdf

OCDE (s.d). Better Life Index. OCDE. https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/

WHO (2023). WHOQOL: Measuring Quality of Life. Who Health Organization. https://www.who.int/tools/whoqol

Back to the LECLIC Guide main page

Sections of LECLIC Guide:

Section 1: Climate change causes and consequences.

Section 2: Climate change and lifestyle

Section 3: Climate change and quality of life

Section 4: Actions to mitigate climate change

Section 5: Conclusions

Section 6: Test your knowledge on climate change playing a Virtual Reality Game

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