« Climate change is making us sick, and urgent action is a matter of life and death », alerted the World Health Organization before the UN climate conference, organized from November 11 to 22 in Baku (Azerbaijan).
As the planet continues to warm from increasing fossil fuel emissions, many countries are hit by floods, droughts, heatwaves or devastating storms.
Here is an overview of the impacts of climate change on human health.
Extreme heat and precipitation
He is ” almost certain that 2024 will be the hottest year on record », announced this week the European Copernicus service. This is also expected to be the first year more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average of 1850-1900.
Already, heat is killing more people around the world, confirms the annual reference report published by the medical journal The Lancet.
Excessive heat can lead to kidney problems, strokes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, organ failure and sometimes death.
The number of over-65s dying from heat has jumped 167% worldwide since the 1990s. And more than 70% of the world’s working population is exposed to excessive heat, with nearly 19,000 deaths each year. year, according to the WHO.
Extreme precipitation is another face of climate change.
« This year has highlighted the growing effects of global warming on the health and well-being of populations “, according to Jeni Miller, executive director of the Global Alliance for Climate and Health, a coalition of NGOs.
She mentioned the extreme heat causing 700 deaths and more than 40,000 heat strokes in India, the rains causing the collapse of a dam in Nigeria, which killed 320 people, or the drought in 48 of the 50 American states.
Spain is still recovering from the deadliest floods in a generation, while parts of the United States and Cuba are dealing with the aftermath of recent hurricanes.
Droughts, floods and other extreme weather phenomena also threaten crops and increase the risk of famine.
Air pollution
Nearly 99% of the world’s population breathes air exceeding the limits set by the WHO.
Accentuated by climate change, air pollution increases the risk of respiratory diseases, cardiovascular accidents, diabetes or cancer and has, according to some experts, effects comparable to, or even greater than, those of tobacco or tobacco. ‘alcohol.
Notable during pollution peaks, the most harmful effect on health is linked to long-term exposure.
According to the WHO, almost seven million premature deaths are caused by air pollution each year worldwide.
Barely a week ago, Lahore, Pakistan’s second city, recorded a concentration of PM2.5 microparticles in the air more than 40 times higher than the level deemed acceptable by the WHO.
A glimmer of hope, the number of people killed by air pollution generated by fossil fuels fell by around 7% worldwide between 2016 and 2021, “ mainly due to the closure of coal-fired power stations ”, according to the Lancet report.
Infectious diseases
By modifying temperature and precipitation, climate change also increases infectious and parasitic diseases.
This is particularly linked to new areas of penetration of mosquitoes, birds or mammals involved in epidemics caused by viruses (dengue, chikungunya, Zika, West Nile virus, etc.), bacteria (plague, Lyme disease, etc.). .), animals or parasites (malaria, etc.).
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Rising temperature alone increased the global transmission potential of the tiger mosquito, the vector of dengue fever, by 42.7% between the 1950s and the 2010s, according to the Lancet. And 2023 recorded more than five million cases of dengue, a new record.
Storms or floods can also leave stagnant water, favorable for mosquito breeding and associated with an increased risk of water-borne diseases, such as cholera, typhoid and diarrhea.
With AFP
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