Cop28: why climate change is ‘the single biggest health threat facing humanity’: extreme heat, rising hunger, choking air pollution, widespread disease

The Cop28 UN climate change conference will host its first ever ‘health day’ in a bid to avert catastrophic health impacts – and millions of deaths

This year is forecast to be the hottest on record, with more frequent and intense heatwaves expected to follow

3-MIN READ3-MIN

With the world on track to warm up to 2.9 degrees Celsius this century, according to the UN, no one will be completely safe from the effects of climate change, with children, women, the elderly, migrants and people in less developed countries most at risk. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 7:15pm, 28 Nov 2023Updated: 7:45am, 29 Nov 2023

Growing calls for the world to come to grips with the many ways that global warming affects human health have prompted the first day dedicated to the issue at crunch UN climate talks starting this week.

Extreme heat, air pollution and the increasing spread of deadly infectious diseases are just some of the reasons why the World Health Organization has called climate change “the single biggest health threat facing humanity”.

Global warming must be limited to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius “to avert catastrophic health impacts and prevent millions of climate-change-related deaths”, according to the WHO.

However, under current national carbon-cutting plans, the world is on track to warm up to 2.9 degrees Celsius this century, the UN said this week.

Indonesia’s capital Jakarta is enveloped by air pollution on August 21, 2023. Photo: Shutterstock

While no one will be completely safe from the effects of climate change, experts expect that most at risk will be children, women, the elderly, migrants and people in less-developed countries that have emitted the least planet-warming greenhouse gases.