Time to treat the climate and nature crisis as one indivisible global health emergency | ||||
Microbes and Infectious Diseases | ||||
Article 2, Volume 4, Issue 4, November 2023, Page 1075-1078 PDF (320.01 K) | ||||
Document Type: Editorials | ||||
DOI: 10.21608/mid.2023.320159 | ||||
View on SCiNiTO | ||||
Authors | ||||
Kamran Abbasi1; Parveen Ali2; Virginia Barbour3; Thomas Benfield4; Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo5; Stephen Hancocks6; Richard Horton7; Laurie Laybourn-Langton8; Robert Mash9; Peush Sahni10; Wadeia Mohammad Sharief11; Abdullah Shehab12; Paul Yonga13; Chris Zielinski 14 | ||||
1BMJ Editor-in-Chief | ||||
2International Nursing Review Editor-in-Chief | ||||
3Medical Journal of Australia Editor-in-Chief | ||||
4Danish Medical Journal Editor-in-Chief | ||||
5JAMA Editor-in-Chief | ||||
6British Dental Journal Editor-in-Chief | ||||
7The Lancet Editor-in-Chief | ||||
8University of Exeter | ||||
9African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine Editor-in-Chief | ||||
10National Medical Journal of India Editor-in-Chief | ||||
11Dubai Medical Journal Editor-in-Chief | ||||
12New Emirates Medical Journal Editor-in-Chief | ||||
13East African Medical Journal Editor-in-Chief | ||||
14University of Winchester | ||||
Abstract | ||||
Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackled together to preserve health and avoid catastrophe. This overall environmental crisis is now so severe as to be a global health emergency. The world is currently responding to the climate crisis and the nature crisis as if they were separate challenges. This is a dangerous mistake. The 28th Conference of the Parties (COP) on climate change is about to be held in Dubai while the 16th COP on biodiversity is due to be held in Turkey in 2024. The research communities that provide the evidence for the two COPs are unfortunately largely separate, but they were brought together for a workshop in 2020 when they concluded that: “Only by considering climate and biodiversity as parts of the same complex problem…can solutions be developed that avoid maladaptation and maximize the beneficial outcomes” . | ||||
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