Climate Change Causes 300,000 Deaths Every Year, Most in Poorest Countries
Two reports remind us why climate change is an issue already affecting people, killing 300,000 each year. As you can see on this map made by Oxfam, Africa and South Asia are suffering the greatest number of deaths, confirming that it's the poorest people suffering most from the effects on climate change.
A World Health Organization (WHO) report published in 2005 initially estimated 150,000 climate-related deaths occurred in 2000 — caused by more heatwaves, more water-borne diseases, increased malnutrition, and rising sea-levels. WHO expects this numbers to increase in the future. Four years before the Copenhagen climate summit (COP15, the fifteenth such meeting), WHO was already demanding action be taken to reduce human influence on the climate: cutting emissions and building capacity to help developing nations react.
A more recent Oxfam report notes the number is now 300,000, and is expected to rise to 500,000 every year by 2030. The organization explains that 325 million people are seriously affected, with financial losses each year amounting to $125 billion. It's not changes to weather that's killing the most people but 9/10 deaths "are related to the gradual environmental degradation [climate change] causes (principally malnutrition, diarrhoea, malaria)."
Four years after the WHO report and following the Oxfam report, countries are still avoiding an agreement that they are more than able to make. They managed to rally their economies in the face of financial disaster, but climate disaster, which is actually killing people, hundreds of thousands of people every year, doesn't get trillions of dollars or anywhere near the same degree of international co-operation.
COMMENTS (0)