How climate change threatens human rights
The World Health Organization has declared climate change to be the greatest threat to health that humanity faces. Since climate change affects so many aspects of our lives, its effects on health and health care are complex, multiple and highly variable across geographies, ecozones and development levels.
There are direct impacts on our bodies and communities, such as have emerged with extreme heat, droughts, floods, fires and other climate change-driven catastrophic events. There also are more complex and indirect impacts, such as increasing food insecurity, the rising threat of infectious diseases, increased exposure to water and air pollutants, the health impacts of forced mobility and migration, and the mental health and social impacts of the climate crisis that affect us on our deepest levels.
Yet climate change has not traditionally…
