The World Health Organisation (WHO) has called on governments to take concrete actions to mitigate the climate crisis for the health of the planet and the health of humans.
It said that climate crisis is a health crisis, in which air pollution kills seven million people every year and 99 per cent of the world’s population breathe unhealthy air, mainly as a result of burning fossil fuels.
The warming world is also facilitating the spread of mosquitoes and the diseases they carry, while extreme weather events, biodiversity loss, land degradation and water scarcity are displacing people and damaging their health, WHO said.
Meanwhile, systems producing highly processed unhealthy foods are driving obesity, increasing cancer and heart diseases, is also generating one-third of greenhouse gas emissions.
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“As the world recovers and rebuilds from the COVID-19 pandemic, we have a choice,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus.
Ghebreyesus called on all countries to stop subsidising economies and products that destroy health and well-being of people.
“Stop pumping carbon into that atmosphere at the same rate and adopting patterns of consumption which caused diabetes, hypertension, heart diseases and cancer.”
In an earlier statement, WHO said the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the fault lines of inequity across the world.
It underlined the urgency to create sustainable, well-being societies which do not breach ecological limits and which ensure that all people have access to life-saving and life-enhancing tools, systems, policies and environment.
