Climate change, says the World Health Organization (WHO), is a significant and emerging threat to public health, and changes the way we must look at protecting vulnerable populations.
The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed that there is overwhelming evidence that humans are affecting the global climate, and highlighted a wide range of implications for human health.
Climate variability and change cause death and disease through natural disasters such as heat waves, floods, and droughts. Also, many important diseases are highly sensitive to changing temperatures and precipitation. These include common vectorborne diseases such as malaria and dengue, as well as other major killers such as malnutrition and diarrhea.