|
This year at the United Nations climate conference (COP26), human health has emerged as a leading issue, emphasizing the devastating impacts that climate change will have—and is already having—on human health.
Scientific research has continued to demonstrate that climate change is exacerbating a wide range of health risks around the world. Some of these risks (among many others) include heat waves, intensifying wildfires and smoke, heightened flood risks, and worsening droughts, all of which are already impacting the Western United States. Climate-induced risks are driving difficulties in providing care as hospitals face unexpected environmental emergency events.
The medical field is well aware of the issue: one letter signed by organizations representing 47 million global health professionals declared the climate crisis “the single biggest health threat facing humanity.” Dr. Maria Neira, the director of the World Health Organization’s department on environment, climate change and health said, "The Paris Agreement is not an environmental treaty. It is a basic public health treaty.” The World Health Organization estimates that at least 250,000 additional deaths will occur every year between 2030 and 2050 as a result of climate change.
The deep connections between climate and health are highlighted at a time when the world has spent nearly two years in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, underscoring to both the public and politicians the importance of human health and wellbeing.
Right now is a critical time for humanity—and the United States specifically—to address climate change in order to prevent escalating health risks and unnecessary human deaths. On public lands, this means that it is time for the Interior Department to step up to the climate plate and make continued efforts to reduce the contributions of our lands to the climate and health crisis.
|
We are making a lot of changes now. Even without the [interim oil and gas leasing] report, we know what needs to happen. We are doing whatever we can at the department to ensure we are analyzing these leases with climate change as a backdrop. We need to absolutely consider climate change, we need to consider the social cost of carbon in the things that we do."
