Climate change poses health risks

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), millions more people will be at risk from illnesses such as malaria and diarrhoea in a warming world beset by heat waves and water shortages. According to WHO's director for public health and the environment, rising temperatures and heat waves will increase the number of heat-related deaths, while higher ozone levels from pollution will mean more people suffering from cardio-respiratory disease. A warming world would also mean the spread of vector-borne and pathogenic diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and cholera. Some of the major killers are climate sensitive. There is concern about malnutrition related to lack of agricultural production, about diarrhoea due to water scarcity and sanitation, and about seeing an increase in dengue and malaria and their appearance in areas where it was not present. The health costs of inaction will be the incidence of injuries and death by natural disasters and heat waves or displacement of people. Climate change is also expected to increase the proportion of the global population exposed to dengue, a disease carried by mosquitoes, by between 50 and 60 percent. The 190-nation U.N. climate meeting (to be held December) is seeking to launch two years of formal negotiations meant to end with agreement on a broad new U.N. pact to fight global warming, which is linked with rising sea levels, floods and melting glaciers. In the past, experts have found South Asia to be particularly at risk. The region's flood-prone, low-lying countries such as Bangladesh, melting Himalayan glaciers, desert areas and large coastal cities mean disease could spread quickly and exacerbate malnutrition.