“Tackling climate change in fact represents one of the greatest opportunities to benefit human health for generations to come”, according to the co-chair of the Commission on Health and Climate, Professor Anthony Costello, director University College London Institute for Global Health. The Commission, a group of scientists convened by The Lancet journal, has published its second report on 22 June 2015.
The study brings together data on climate and population trends and quantifies the future global health impacts of climate change. It looks at both direct impacts of extreme weather like heat, floods and storms, and adverse indirect effects of food insecurity, poor air quality or even displacement. For instance, three times more people will be exposed to drought by the end of the century and four times more to extreme rainfall. In many areas, this implies no less than reversing development gains. Urgent action on mitigating climate change and preparing for its health-related challenges is needed: actual carbon emission rates have been even higher than in the worst-case scenario of the previous Lancet study (2009) on health and climate.
Major health co-benefits of climate action should encourage policy-makers to act more decisively. Fortunately, there is increasing momentum. For example, the intergovernmental Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short Lived Climate Pollutants (CCAC), initiated in 2012, emphasises that mitigating methane, black carbon, and HFCs can help avoid two million premature deaths every year. In fact, air pollution was proclaimed one of “the leading avoidable causes of disease and death globally” by the World Health Assembly in a resolution of 26 May 2015, as every year 8 million deaths can be attributed to polluted air exposure indoor and outdoor.
This video explains the report's findings.
Water is a matter of survival and plays a critical role in social, economic and environmental activities as well. With a rise in global demand for water, water crises have consistently featured among the World Economic Forum’s top global impact risks. Water insecurity, i.e., the lack of water availability for basic human needs and socio-economic development, undermines billions of livelihoods and poses significant risks for peace and prosperity by thwarting progress and fuelling displacement and conflict.
Limited access to energy is a significant barrier to development and holds back efforts to improve living conditions in developing and emerging economies. Around the world, 1.1 billion people still do not have access to electricity, and 2.8 billion still rely on animal and crop waste, wood, charcoal and other solid fuels to cook their food and heat their homes.
As the earth’s climate warms, people face mounting threats from rising seas, and more intense and frequent storms, heatwaves, fires, and droughts. When these events hit, people want to understand whether they are connected to climate change. Linking climate change with heatwaves, storms and other events can help us prepare for a changing world, argues Peter Stott.
A recent report by the UNEP focuses on addressing trade in wildlife and forest products across the three sectors of crime prevention and criminal justice, trade regulation and natural resource management. It finds that there is less focus on the legislative means for preventing offenses related to trade in wildlife and forest products and more attention on the means for detecting and punishing such offenses.