250,000 people to die each year due to climate change

A research from the World Health Organization reveals that climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050; 38 000 due to heat exposure in elderly people, 48 000 due to diarrhoea, 60 000 due to malaria, and 95 000 due to childhood under nutrition.

Results indicate that the burden of disease from climate change in the future will continue to fall mainly on children in developing countries, but that other population groups will be increasingly affected.

And already a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that global emissions of greenhouse gases have risen to unprecedented levels despite a growing number of policies to reduce climate change.

IPCC is the international body for assessing the science related to climate change.

It estimates suggest that climate change is likely to have significant effects on cereal crop productivity, potentially increasing the risk of under nutrition.

Projected increases in infectious disease morbidity, especially for diarrhoea illness, would exacerbate climate change effects on child nutrition.

In 2030, sub-Saharan Africa is projected to have the greatest burden of mortality impacts attributable to climate change.

By 2050, south Asia is projected to be the region most affected by the health effects of climate change.

Climate change is thus accelerating and poses sweeping risks for economic stability and the security of nations. Food security and the ecosystem are challenged. We see people losing their habitat through natural disasters, and other fighting over water.

While the world is confronting Ebola and terrorism as immediate cases, we have to also come to terms with the fact that climate change has immediacy with greater and longer- term consequences that can cost hundreds and billions of people’s lives and security of the world.

Hence the need for effective action to confront the mounting threat of climate change is now.

Actions taken so far

In light of the threats of climate change, 193 heads of state and leaders from business, finance and civil society met the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, on Tuesday 23 September, 2014 for the United Nations Climate Summit to generate political will towards emission reduction and build resilience to the impact of climate change.

The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, acknowledged that “Time is running out” and “the more we delay, the more we will pay”

He agreed "Without significant cuts in emissions by all countries, and in key sectors, the window of opportunity to stay with less than 2 degrees will soon close forever”.

Ban Ki-moon added, “many leaders, from all regions and all levels of economic development advocated for a peak in greenhouse gas emissions before 2020, dramatically reduced emissions thereafter, and climate neutrality in the second half of the century."

President Barack Obama also called on world leaders, specifically China to join the United States to lead the rest of the world in carbon reduction.

Addressing the United Nations, Obama reiterated, "We have a responsibility to lead,"  “We know what we have to do to avoid irreparable harm.  We have to cut carbon pollution in our own countries to prevent the worst effects of climate change. And we have to work together as a global community to tackle this global threat before it is too late”. 

Ahead of the UN Summit

Ahead of the summit thousands of people including the youth took to marching through the streets to tell world leaders the need to cut global warming pollution.

On the other hand, UN Special Envoy on Climate Change and the former president of Ghana, John Agyekum Kufuor, had engaged almost all African leaders on the need to galvanize support and declare their commitment towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Before the summit, it was expected that world leaders attending the summit demonstrate that they fully understand the dangers that climate change poses to the prosperity and well-being of their citizens; and also acknowledge their collective responsibility to act urgently to reduce this threat.

Fortunately, foreign ministers of US, Peru, and France met their colleague ministers at the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change Ministerial on Sunday 21^st September, 2014 ahead of the UN Summit and admitted that climate change has impacts not only on the environment but on various economies and global security interests as well.

The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, in his opening statement at the foreign ministers forum recognized 20 countries, including US and China as “the economies that are in the best position to be able to address the global threat of climate change”

Addressing the ministers Kerry reiterated “unlike many of the challenges that we face, when it comes to climate change we know exactly what it takes to get the job done. There’s no mystery to this. The solution to climate change is energy policy. If we make the right choices about how we build buildings, how we transport people, what we do with respect to providing electricity and power to our countries, this problem gets solved. And every one of our countries has the technologies today to be able to do this. The policies aren’t complicated. It’s getting the political will to make the decisions to do what we know we have to do about it. It’s as simple as that, and that is true all over the world.”

My concerned as an African who is largely affected by the impact of climate change is for world leaders to abide by their own commitments this time round to avoid the same disappointment saw during the Rio Earth summit, of 1992, and the Kyoto protocol which could not successfully address issues of emission reduction.

The UN Summit took place on 23^rd September, 2014, marking the first time in five years that world leaders got together to register a bold and new course of action on climate change. The Secretary-General charged leaders to declare significant and substantial initiatives to help move the world toward a path that will limit global warming.

Among the declarations at the Summit include increasing the use of renewable energy, increasing energy efficiency, reducing deforestation, promoting climate smart agriculture, building resilience, reducing pollutants, mobilizing finance for climate action, and promoting climate action in the world’s cities.

First Published/Citifmonline.com