In March, the World Health Organization (WHO) held a Climate Change, Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions conference in Copenhagen attended by more than 2,500 researchers and economists. The conference presented WHO’s research findings on the health impacts of climate change. WHO estimates that about 150,000 deaths per year now occur in low-income countries due to four climate-sensitive health outcomes: crop failure and malnutrition, diarrheal disease, malaria, and flooding. Almost 85% of these excess deaths are in young children. The poor, the geographically vulnerable, the very young, women and the elderly are at greatest risk of climate-related health problems and premature mortality.

The British economist Lord Stern said at the conference that the cost of doing nothing would amount to up to a third of the world’s wealth by 2050. He urged scientists to speak out and tell the politicians what the world would be like if effective measures against global warming were not taken.

Climate change figure, courtesy of WHO