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Climate change and human health

Climate change belongs in a new category of global environmental health problems. It is not just that the impacts are widely distributed: climate change is a result of unbalanced global systems. It is one of the modern threats to a ‘safe operating space’ for the planet. The effects on health occur directly, such as increased heat waves; through pressures on natural systems (reduced crop yields and undernutrition, for instance); and, as a consequence of social disruption. Also there may be impacts due to policy responses to climate change: these are so-called ‘transition risks’. Improving baseline health status is fundamental to coping with climate change, because the populations that are most seriously affected are those that already bear a heavy burden of disease. But an undifferentiated public health response is not sufficient. There are distinctive features of climate change that have to be taken into account. Mitigation, or primary prevention, will require rapid, deep cuts in greenhouse emissions if global heating is to be limited. The goal is to identify common solutions, responses to climate change that are health-enhancing rather than health damaging. There are many candidates, but by and large they are not on the path of ‘business as usual’ development.