How Climate Change Impacts Health

AFP/APP

Paris: Growing calls for the world to come to grips with the many ways that global warming affects human health have prompted the first day dedicated to the issue at the crunch UN climate talks starting next week.

Extreme heat, air pollution, and the increasing spread of deadly infectious diseases are just some of the reasons why the World Health Organisation has called climate change the single biggest health threat facing humanity.

Climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity:WHO

Global warming must be limited to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius “to avert catastrophic health impacts and prevent millions of climate change-related deaths,” according to the WHO. However, under current national carbon-cutting plans, the world is on track to warm up to 2.9C this century, the UN said this week.

The world is on track to warm up to 2.9C this century, far exceeding the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius

While no one will be completely safe from the effects of climate change, experts expect that those most at risk will be children, women, the elderly, migrants, and people in less developed countries, which have emitted the least amount of planet-warming greenhouse gases.

On December 3, the COP28 negotiations in Dubai will host the first “health day” ever held at the climate negotiations.