Dependence on fossil fuels endangers human well being – rts.ch

“The world is at a turning level (…) We should change. In any other case our youngsters will face an acceleration of local weather change which might threaten their survival”, warns Anthony Costello, professor and co-president of the Lancet Countdown, annual research carried out by 99 specialists from 51 establishmentstogether with the World Well being Group (WHO), the World Meteorological Group (WMO), underneath the supervision of College School London.

As international locations and well being techniques grapple with the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, the evaluation, launched days earlier than the opening of the UN local weather assembly COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, highlights that the overwhelming majority of nations nonetheless allocate a whole lot of billions of {dollars} in fossil gas subsidies, quantities akin to and even larger than their well being budgets.

Warmth-related deaths

Nonetheless, “extreme and protracted dependence on fossil fuels is quickly aggravating local weather change” and “creating harmful repercussions for well being”, underlines the research.

Rising temperatures and excessive climate occasions – made extra seemingly by local weather change – go away practically 100 million extra folks severely meals insecure as we speak, in comparison with the interval 1981-2010, notes Elizabeth Robinson, director of the Grantham Analysis Institute on the London Faculty of Economics, one of many important contributors to the report.

>> On the identical subject: Upcoming warmth waves will make areas fully uninhabitable

In the meantime, heat-related deaths elevated by 68% between 2017 and 2021 in comparison with 2000-2004, and human publicity to excessive hearth danger days elevated by 61% over related intervals.

Nicolas Senn, director of the household medication division at Unisanté, explains in La Matinale “{that a} warmth wave season like this summer season will trigger extra dehydration within the aged or folks with continual sicknesses.” He factors out that the rise in these ailments is a tangible signal of world warming.

The local weather disaster is killing us. It harms not solely the well being of our planet, but additionally that of all its inhabitants.

Threat of epidemic because of the disaster

Local weather change additionally impacts the unfold of infectious ailments, the report reveals. The window of alternative for malaria transmission has elevated by nearly a 3rd (32.1%) in elements of the Americas and by 14% in Africa over the previous decade, in comparison with the interval 1951-1960. Globally, the chance of dengue transmission elevated by 12% over the interval.

In an interview given to RTS, Sylvie Briand, director of the pandemic and epidemic division on the WHO, completes: “It is the identical factor for cholera, whose micro organism is present in sure algae: if the waters change, this micro organism can multiply extra simply. Thus, local weather change can have a direct affect on the rise in infectious epidemic ailments.”

“The local weather disaster is killing us. It’s harming not solely the well being of our planet, but additionally that of all its inhabitants (…) whereas the dependancy to fossil fuels is spiraling uncontrolled”, reacted the secretary basic. of the UN Antonio Guterres, calling for investments in renewable power and local weather resilience. A yr in the past, the WHO estimated that between 2030 and 2050, practically 250,000 extra deaths per yr can be attributable to local weather change.

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