Climate can’t wait for pandemic to end, medical journals warn



Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the world cannot postpone the “urgent” measures to be taken against global warming and the destruction of nature, which threaten human health, plead the main medical journals of the planet on Monday, in a report. unprecedented editorial.

“Health is already altered by the increase in global temperature and the destruction of nature,” write the editors of some twenty prestigious journals including the Lancet, the British Medical Journal where the National Medical Journal of India. With an increase of around + 1.1 ° C since the pre-industrial era, the consequences on human health are already significant.

Terrible consequences

“The higher temperatures have led to an increase in dehydration and kidney problems, malignant skin tumors, tropical infections, mental problems, pregnancy complications, allergies and mortality, and cardiovascular and pulmonary morbidity. », Underlines this editorial published in 220 medical journals. Not to mention the decline in agricultural production slowing efforts against malnutrition.

And these consequences, which hit the most vulnerable even harder (minorities, children, the poorest communities, etc.), are only the beginning, points out this editorial. A warming to + 1.5 ° C – a threshold that could be reached around 2030 according to the IPCC expert report published in early August -, and the continued loss of biodiversity “risk causing catastrophic and irreversible damage to the environment. health “.

No vaccine against global warming

“Despite the legitimate concern for the Covid-19, we cannot wait for the pandemic to be over to quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions”, insist the authors of this call, two months before the climate conference of the Crucial UN COP26 in Glasgow.

“The risks of climate change could eclipse those of any disease. The Covid-19 pandemic will end, but there is no vaccine against the climate crisis, “said World Health Organization boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement, noting that” every measure taken to limit emissions and warming are bringing us closer to a healthier and more secure future ”.

Referring to the “unprecedented” sums spent during the pandemic, medical journals thus call for a massive increase in funding for the protection of the planet and highlight the positive cascading effects. “Better air quality alone would provide health improvements that easily offset the overall cost of reducing emissions,” the authors say.



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