Journal Article

Call for emergency action to limit global temperature increases, restore biodiversity and protect health

Bosurgi, Raffaella, Rubin, Eric J, Godlee, Fiona, Vázquez, Damián, Baqui, Abdullah H, Laybourn-Langton, Laurie, Sahni, Peush, Horton, Richard, Hancocks, Stephen, Norman, Ian, Talley, Nicholas J, Marcel GM Olde Rikkert, Praities, Nigel, Turale, Sue, Benfield, Thomas, Atwoli, Lukoye, Patrick, Kirsten, Smith, Richard, Monteiro, Carlos Augusto

2021

Overview

Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and the destruction of the natural world, a state of affairs health professionals have been bringing attention to for decades.1 The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5°C above the preindustrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.2 3 Despite the world’s necessary preoccupation with COVID-19, we cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions. In the past 20 years, heat-related mortality among people aged over 65 has increased by more than 50%.4 Higher temperatures have brought increased dehydration and renal function loss, dermatological malignancies, tropical infections, adverse mental health outcomes, pregnancy complications, allergies, and cardiovascular and pulmonary morbidity and mortality.5 6 Harms disproportionately affect the most vulnerable, including children, older populations, ethnic minorities, poorer communities and those with underlying health problems.2 4 Global heating is also contributing to the decline in global yield potential for major crops, falling by 1.8%–5.6% since 1981; this, together with the effects of extreme weather and soil depletion, is hampering efforts to reduce undernutrition.4 Thriving ecosystems are essential to human health, and the widespread destruction of nature, including habitats and species, is eroding water and food security and increasing the chance of pandemics.3 7 8 The consequences of the environmental crisis fall disproportionately on those countries and communities that have contributed least to the problem and are least able to mitigate the harms. Emissions reduction plans do not adequately incorporate health considerations.12 Concern is growing that temperature rises above 1.5°C are beginning to be seen as inevitable, or even acceptable, to powerful members of the global community.13 Relatedly, current strategies for reducing emissions to net zero by the middle of the century implausibly assume that the world will acquire great capabilities to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.14 15 This insufficient action means that temperature increases are likely to be well in excess of 2°C,16 a catastrophic outcome for health and environmental stability. Better air quality alone would realise health benefits that easily offset the global costs of emissions reductions.22 These measures will also improve the social and economic determinants of health, the poor state of which may have made populations more vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic.23 But the changes cannot be achieved through a return to damaging austerity policies or the continuation of the large inequalities of wealth and power within and between countries.

• Publisher: BMJ Publishing Group LTD
• Subject: Air pollution / Biodiversity / Climate change / Coronaviruses / COVID-19 / Editorials / Emissions / Funding / Low income groups / Medical personnel / Mortality / Nature / Outdoor air quality / Pandemics