Australian Associated Press
Global health bodies are demanding international governments urgently phase out fossil fuels and fast-track renewable energy as health professionals increasingly see patients suffering from harm caused by climate change.
The world’s leading GP and health bodies, representing more than three million health professionals worldwide, will deliver an open letter on Saturday calling for urgent action against climate change to protect the health of communities.
“We the family doctors, doctors and health professionals of the world call on world leaders to take urgent action to safeguard the health of global populations from the climate crisis,” the open letter reads.
Signatories from 39 leading health bodies, including Australia’s peak body for GPs and rural medicine, say they’re already seeing widespread impacts on human health caused by climate change in their patients.
“As frontline health workers, we are increasingly responding to health emergencies triggered by the climate crisis,” they say.
“Yet in the face of increasing harm and suffering, new fossil fuel resources continue to be developed and greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.”
The signatories include health bodies from Canada, India, Europe, Pacific nations and the UK, who are demanding all governments end the expansion of any new fossil fuel infrastructure and production, phase out existing fuels, remove subsidies and invest in renewable energy.
“If we are to have any chance of limiting warming to 1.5C and halting the escalation of the climate health emergency, we must end the proliferation of fossil fuels,” the letter says.
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By Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean Until the Chinese government deployed this tactic, a strict batten-down-the-hatches approach had never been used before to combat a pandemic. Yes, for centuries infected people had been quarantined in their homes, where they would either recover or die. But that was very different from locking down an entire city; the World […]
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/28/doctors-from-around-the-world-unite-to-call-for-urgent-climate-action Australian Associated Press Global health bodies are demanding international governments urgently phase out fossil fuels and fast-track renewable energy as health professionals increasingly see patients suffering from harm caused by climate change. The world’s leading GP and health bodies, representing more than three million health professionals worldwide, will deliver an open letter on Saturday […]
British Medical Journal: Published 25 October 2023: Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognize that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackled together to preserve health and avoid catastrophe. This overall environmental crisis is now so severe as to be a global health emergency…
Human health is damaged directly by both the climate crisis, as the journals have described in previous editorials, and the nature crisis. …
The World Health Organization should declare the indivisible climate and nature crisis as a global health emergency. The three preconditions for WHO to declare a situation to be a public health emergency of international concern are that it is serious, sudden, unusual, or unexpected; carries implications for public health beyond the affected state’s national border; and may require immediate international action. Climate change seems to fulfil all those conditions. …
We must recognise this crisis for what it is: a global health emergency.”
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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0140988323006187
Energy Economics – Available online 21 October 2023, 107120
Excerpt: “The aim of this paper is to explore the possibility that crises provide a window of opportunity for greener energy and increase the share of renewable energy.” …
“The empirical analysis confirms that growth slowdowns, including those engendered by pandemics and financial crises, result in a permanent increase in energy efficiency and a corresponding decline in the energy intensity of output, with a disproportionate impact on dirty energy.”
