A study by University College London (UCL) concludes we heave severely underestimated the health impacts of global warming. “The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events will dramatically increase.”
“In essence, whether we respond to “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century” is no longer a technical or economic question — it is political. An effective international agreement will be one that supports stronger efforts everywhere and at every level,” the report says.
The Business Insider reports, “The direct health impacts will come from heat waves, floods, droughts and storms, but the indirect impacts, such as changes in infectious disease patterns, pollution, malnutrition, mass migrations, and conflicts will be just as impactful.”
“Our analysis clearly shows that by tackling climate change, we can also benefit health, and tackling climate change in fact represents one of the greatest opportunities to benefit human health for generations to come,” Commission co-Chair Professor Anthony Costello, Director of the UCL Institute for Global Health told UCL News.
“The difficulty, essentially, is ourselves: the tendency of humans to ignore or discount unpleasant facts or difficult choices, the nature of companies and countries to defend their own rather than collective interests and the narrow, short term horizons of most human institutions, which feed into the difficulties of global negotiations,” the report concludes.