Climate action needed to avert ‘health catastrophe’

To achieve sustained recovery from theCOVID-19pandemic and avoid an “impending health catastrophe”, countries must commit to targeted action onclimate change，healthexperts have urged ahead of the UN climate summit, COP26.

Anopen letter由450多个组织签署，代表4500万卫生工作者在下个月在格拉斯哥的COP26召集国家领导人和国家代表团，将“人类健康和公平”放在缓解气候变化和适应措施的中心。根据世界卫生组织（WHO）的数据，签署人名单代表了全球卫生劳动力的三分之二以上。

The WHO’sCOP26 Special Report on Climate Change and Health, The Health Argument for Climate Action，launched at the same time as the letter, outlined 10 recommendations forgovernmentsto “maximise the health benefits of tackling climate change”, and “avoid the worst health impacts of the climate crisis”.

“We are profoundly concerned about the impacts [of climate change] we’re seeing on people’s health now, and that we know are going to get far worse if climate change is not fully addressed.”

Jeni Miller, chair of the environment section of the American Public Health Association

Jeni Miller, chair of the environment section of the American Public Health Association, a signatory of the letter, toldSciDev.Net: “The health community from around the world came together around this letter because we are profoundly concerned about the impacts [of climate change] we’re seeing on people’s health now, and that we know are going to get far worse if climate change is not fully addressed.”

Outlining some of these impacts, the letter states that airpollution，especially from burning fossil fuels, is causing more than seven million premature deaths each year — the equivalent of 13 deaths every minute. It also highlights increases in food-borne, water-borne and vector-borne diseases, as well as the destruction caused by rising sea levels, and increasingly frequent floods, storms and heatwaves.

“无论我们提供保健、医院、临床cs and communities around the world, we are already responding to the health harms caused by climate change,” the letter says.

According to Miller, no country is immune from climate change, but developing countries are feeling the greater impacts and have the fewest resources to respond.

Ayyoob Sharifi, an associate professor at Japan’s Hiroshima University who specialises in urban climate change adaptation and mitigation, said: “Developing countries are expected to be disproportionately impacted [by climate change] due to their limited adaptive capacity as well as the rapid rates of urbanisation.”

Agnimita Giri Sarkar, a paediatrician at the Institute of Child Health, in Kolkata, India, and a member of the Indian Academy of Pediatrics, another signatory of the letter, toldSciDev.Netthat, in India and other developing countries, “heatwaves and air pollution coupled with increased urbanisation are directly affecting the health of children and adults”.

“To tackle climate change, a multidisciplinary team approach comprising of environmentologists, scientists, virologists, microbiologists, epidemiologists, and clinicians is necessary,” she added.

The WHO’s 10 recommendations include: committing to a healthy recovery from COVID-19; making health and social justice central to UN climate talks; prioritising climate interventions that benefit health, society and the economy, and establishing climate resilient andbeplay足球体育的微博环境sustainable卫生系统。

As part of the ParisAgreementadopted by governments in 2015 to tackle climate change, governments pledged to take action to limit global rise to 1.5 degree Celsius. However, Miller warned that national governments are not yet taking the level of action that is urgently needed to meet this goal and protect global health.

“We call on the leaders of every country and their representatives at COP26 to avert the impending health catastrophe by limiting global warming to 1.5°C, and to make human health and equity central to all climate change mitigation and adaptation actions,” the letter urged.

Sharifi said the report and letter had come at “a very important time, as the negative impacts of climate change on public health are becoming more and more evident”.

他补充说：“鉴于发展中国家许多城市的资源限制，我建议优先考虑在气候政策和措施上的投资，以提供可以为健康和公平提供共同利益的措施。”

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Global desk.