Scientists from across the world on Wednesday collectively called for the UN, world leaders, and health authorities to address climate change and biodiversity loss as one global health emergency.
The report published by more than 200 health journals urged the World Health Organisation (WHO) to declare the climate and nature crisis a singular crisis to be tackled together to avoid catastrophe.
These issues will be separately discussed at upcoming United Nations (UN) conferences — the 28th UN Conference of the Parties (COP) on climate change in Dubai in November and the 16th COP on biodiversity in Turkey in 2024.
The research communities associated with the two COPs are largely separate. However, they concluded in a 2020 joint workshop that there was a need to tackle both together.
"Only by considering climate and biodiversity as parts of the same complex problem … can solutions be developed that avoid maladaptation and maximize the beneficial outcomes,” they had said then.
At a time when climate change is set to overtake deforestation and other factors as the leading cause of nature loss, scientists say it's absolutely crucial to understand the interconnection of the natural world.
"Without nature, we have nothing," UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had said last year.
These crises impact human health directly and indirectly, affecting essentials like food and water and increasing risks like extreme weather and disease, the report said. The possible direct impact of exacerbating poverty would lead to mass migration and conflict, according to experts.
The health effects of climate change and biodiversity loss are likely to be experienced disproportionately by vulnerable communities — calling attention to the need to address both environmental and social inequalities.
In December 2022, the biodiversity COP committed to conserving 30% of global land, coasts, and oceans by 2030. The developed world pledged $30 billion annually to aid other countries, echoing previous climate COP commitments.
Yet many of these promises have not been met, pushing the world toward "tipping points.”
Restoring biodiversity and tackling climate change as one crisis is the only way forward, the report emphasized.
India’s economy will become carbon neutral by the year 2070, the country’s prime minster has announced at the COP26 climate crisis summit in Glasgow. The target date is two decades beyond what scientists say is needed to avert catastrophic climate impacts. India is the last of the world’s major carbon polluters to announce a net-zero target, with China saying it would reach that goal in 2060, and the United States and the European Union aiming for 2050.
China's carbon emissions are vast and growing, dwarfing those of other countries. Experts agree that without big reductions in China's emissions, the world cannot win the fight against climate change. In 2020, China's President Xi Jinping said his country would aim for its emissions to reach their highest point before 2030 and for carbon neutrality before 2060. His statement has now been confirmed as China's official position ahead of the COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow. But China has not said exactly how these goals will be achieved.
China's carbon emissions are vast and growing, dwarfing those of other countries. Experts agree that without big reductions in China's emissions, the world cannot win the fight against climate change. In 2020, China's President Xi Jinping said his country would aim for its emissions to reach their highest point before 2030 and for carbon neutrality before 2060. His statement has now been confirmed as China's official position ahead of the COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow. But China has not said exactly how these goals will be achieved.
A crucial U.N. conference heard calls on its first day for the world's major economies to keep their promises of financial help to address the climate crisis, while big polluters India and Brazil made new commitments to cut emissions. World leaders, environmental experts and activists all pleaded for decisive action to halt the global warming which threatens the future of the planet at the start of the two-week COP26 summit in the Scottish city of Glasgow on Monday. The task facing negotiators was made even more daunting by the failure of the Group of 20 major industrial nations to agree ambitious new commitments at the weekend.