There is now widespread agreement
that current trends in energy use and
population growth will lead to continuing – and more severe – climate change.
A changing climate will inevitably affect the basic requirements for maintaining health: clean air and water; sanitation and the environment; food supply; and adequate shelter. Many diseases and health problems may be exacerbated by climate change.
Each year, approximately 1.2 million people die from causes attributable to outdoor urban air pollution, 2.2
million from diarrhoea largely resulting from lack of access to clean water, sanitation and poor hygiene, and
3.5 million from malnutrition (1). In
both industrialized and developing
countries, approximately 60 000 people die in weather-related disasters,
from heat waves to loods and drought
(2). A warmer and more variable climate threatens to lead to higher levels of some air pollutants, to increase
the transmission of diseases by unclean
water, contaminated food, insect vectors and rodents, to compromise agricultural production in some of the least
developed countries, and to increase
the hazards of extreme weather (3, 4).