Global warming is affecting people’s health and world leaders must address the climate crisis now, as they cannot wait until the COVID-19 pandemic ends, editors of more than 230 medical journals warned on Sunday evening.
Why it’s important: This is the first time so many publications have come together to issue a joint statement to world leaders, stressing the gravity of the situation, with the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Lancet and the British Medical Journal among those issuing the warning.
- Ahead of the November UN General Assembly and the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, magazines warned: “The greatest threat to global public health is the continuing failure of world leaders to maintain the increase global temperature below 1.5 ° C and restore nature “. “
Threat level: “Health is already being harmed by rising global temperatures and the destruction of the natural world, “said the publisher, also published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the International Nursing Review, the Chinese Science Bulletin and the Journal of Public Health of Brazil.
- “Despite the world’s necessary concern for Covid-19, we cannot expect the pandemic to happen to quickly reduce emissions.”
Note: The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a statement prior to the publisher’s publication that “the risks posed by climate change could swallow those of any disease.”
- “We will end the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is no vaccine for the climate crisis,” Tedros added.
- The UN intergovernmental panel on climate change said global warming could reach 1.5 ° C (2.7 ° F) last month compared to pre-industrial levels by 2030.
Game status: The publisher reports that heat-related mortality among people over the age of 65 has increased by more than 50% in the last 20 years.
- Global warming has also affected agricultural production, “hampering efforts to reduce malnutrition,” the editors-in-chief of the magazine write.
“Higher temperatures have led to increased dehydration and loss of kidney function, dermatological malignancies, tropical infections, adverse mental health outcomes, pregnancy complications, allergies and morbidity, and cardiovascular and pulmonary mortality. “.
The summary: “Science is unequivocal: a global increase of 1.5 ° C above the pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk a catastrophic damage to health that will be impossible to reverse,” warns the publisher.
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