Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Call for Emergency Action

Caldor

Call for Emergency Action to Limit Global Temperature Increases, Restore Biodiversity, and Protect Health:

"The United Nations General Assembly in September 2021 will bring countries together at a critical time for marshalling collective action to tackle the global environmental crisis. They will meet again at the biodiversity summit in Kunming, China, and at the climate conference (COP26) in Glasgow, United Kingdom. Ahead of these pivotal meetings, we — the editors of health journals worldwide — call for urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1.5° C, halt the destruction of nature, and protect health.

Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and the destruction of the natural world, a state of affairs health professionals have been bringing attention to for decades.1 The science is unequivocal: a global increase of 1.5° C above the pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.2,3 Despite the world’s necessary preoccupation with Covid-19, we cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions.

Reflecting the severity of the moment, this editorial appears in health journals across the world. We are united in recognizing that only fundamental and equitable changes to societies will reverse our current trajectory."

(New England Journal of Medicine, emphasis added).

The next post in this series is here.

1 comment:

  1. How can they possibly keep global temperatures below 1.5C degrees when global temperatures (using the correct pre-industrial, 1750) are already past 1.5C?

    Color me not impressed. Having more meetings to discuss this topic is not going to change anything in any meaningful way. Now if they were willing to shut down industrial civilization, that would a start.

    ReplyDelete