The health burden of climate change: A call for global scientific action
Colin J. Carlson, Mohammad Shafiul Alam, Michelle A. North, Esther Onyango, Anna M. Stewart‐Ibarra
Abstract
A now-famous study calculated in 2003 that at least 166,000 annual deaths and 5.5 million disability-adjusted life years from malnutrition, diarrheal disease, malaria, floods, and cardiovascular diseases might already be attributable to anthropogenic climate change [1]. These estimates helped set one of the first baselines on the gravity of climate injustice: developed countries experience less than 0.15% of a global health burden for which they are largely responsible But today, these estimates-and the data and methods that powered them-are increasingly out-of-date. The planet is now 1.2C warmer than pre-industrial temperatures, with a roughly 50% chance of passing 1.5C in the next half-decade, and the accelerating impact on human health has been conspicuous. Despite this, sources like the World Health Organization (WHO) are still forced to rely on these outdated estimates: compared to the hundreds of studies that project future climate risks, relatively little is known about the real-time impacts of climate change on human health.