Declarations of a global medical consensus on climate change signed by 1,700 health organizations, 8,200 hospitals and health facilities and 13 million health professionals were released Saturday at the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
The declarations, which include the first ever "call to action" on climate change by the World Health Organization, represent a shift in public opinion that brings concern over climate change further into the mainstream, campaign organizers said.
"Climate change, and all of its dire consequences for health, should be at center-stage, right now, whenever talk turns to the future of human civilizations. After all, that's what's at stake," said Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization.
The immediate health impacts from burning coal and other fossil fuels were seen earlier this week when officials in Beijing declared a highest-level "red alert" for air pollution in the city, the first since an emergency air-pollution response system was put in place in 2013. The alert called for school closures and limitations on when people can drive cars, in an effort to reduce dangerous air pollution levels. Each year more than 7 million premature deaths are attributed to air pollution, according to the World Health Organization.
"For a very long time, policy makers have been hearing the same message about climate change, about biodiversity, about polar bears, [and] about the environment from the same voices," said Nick Watts, coordinator of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, which organized the declarations' release.
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"Increasingly we've started to hear in the last two years in the lead-up to Paris from non-traditional, usually very conservative but very powerful voices; from the business community, from the faith community, and from the health and medical community."
The Health and medical community in particular could powerfully impact the fight against climate change, said Watts, who is also a research fellow at the University College London's Institute for Global Health.
"They are often a little bit slow to engage but when they do they have the potential to move mountains," Watts said. "Whether it's tobacco and unseating vested interests there, whether it's the polio vaccination and an increasing drive towards [better] sanitation, or turning back the tide in the spread of HIV, the health profession when it does engage is really quite a powerful actor and advocate."
A report published along with the declarations calls for negotiators to address human health concerns in the agreement they hope to forge on climate change.
Read more at Medical Community Warns Climate Change Is an Imminent Public Health Threat
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