Climate Change

The world approved a bitterly negotiated climate deal Sunday but poorer nations most at the mercy of worsening disasters dismissed a $300 billion a year pledge from wealthy historic polluters as insultingly low. After two exhausting weeks of chaotic bargaining and sleepless nights, nearly 200 nations banged through the contentious finance pact in the early hours in a sports stadium in Azerbaijan. But the applause had barely subsided when India delivered a full-throated rejection of the “abysmally poor” dollar-figure just agreed. “It’s a paltry sum,” thundered India’s delegate Chandni Raina. “This document is little more than an optical illusion. This, in our opinion, will not address the enormity of the challenge we all face.” Sierra Leone’s climate minister Jiwoh Abdulai, w...

GHealth News - The U.N. weather agency is sounding a “red alert” about global warming, citing record-smashing increases last year in greenhouse gases, land and water temperatures and melting of glaciers and sea ice, and is warning that the world's efforts to reverse the trend have been inadequate. The World Meteorological Organization said there is a “high probability” that 2024 will be another record-hot year. The Geneva-based agency, in a “State of the Global Climate” report released Tuesday, ratcheted up concerns that a much-vaunted climate goal is increasingly in jeopardy: That the world can unite to limit planetary warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels. “Never have we been so close – albeit on a temporary basis at the ...

By: Barton Goldsmith Climate change is not just an environmental issue; it has a profound impact on our emotional well-being. From eco-anxiety to despair, climate change can drive an array of emotional consequences. Climate change, driven by rising global temperatures and extreme weather events, is not confined to its physical manifestations. Its effects extend into the emotional realm, influencing how individuals feel and respond to the world around them. Understanding these emotional responses is crucial for addressing the emotional well-being of communities and individuals. Climate change is often associated with the rise of eco-anxiety, a form of chronic worry and fear about the future of the planet. Researchers like Clayton (2012) have examined how concerns about climate chan...

GHealth News - In a sweeping report on the issue, the United Nations agency detailed the heart-wrenching stories of some of the children affected, and co-author Laura Healy told AFP the data only revealed the "tip of the iceberg," with many more likely affected. "We moved our belongings to the highway, where we lived for weeks," recounts Sudanese child Khalid Abdul Azim, whose flooded village was only accessible by boat. In 2017, sisters Mia and Maia Bravo watched flames engulf their trailer in California from the back of the family minivan. "I was afraid, in shock," Maia says in the report. "I would stay up all night." Statistics on internal displacements caused by climate disasters generally do not account for the age of the victims. But UNICEF worked w...

By: Tony Capon Health leaders from the world’s biggest nations have expressed their concern about the rising impact of emissions from health care, but more urgent calls for change came from health and climate experts on the margins of the G7 Health Ministers summit. Health Ministers from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States met in Nagaski, committing to working together across three primary areas: global health architecture, universal health coverage, and health innovation.  On global health architecture, their focus was on learning lessons from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and support for the negotiation of a new instrument under the World Health Organization constitution to strengthen pa...

A helicopter assists as a wildfire burns parts of the rural areas around Curacavi town outside Santiago, Chile, December 15, 2022. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado GHealth News - A heat wave that has hit Chile this week with record temperatures in some areas and a lack of rainfall has intensified forest fires that have already burned more than 7,000 hectares (17,000 acres)in the South American nation. Dozens of people have had to evacuate their homes because of the fires and the capital Santiago is under a public health alert due to a cloud of smoke, officials said on Friday. The state-owned National Forestry Corporation (Conaf) said firefighters were currently tackling 18 fires concentrated in the country's central regions, as well as a smaller number in the south. Among several localiti...

The first global knowledge platform dedicated to climate and health - climahealth.info – was launched today by the Joint Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO), with support from the Wellcome Trust. It is in response to growing calls for actionable information to protect people from the health risks of climate change and other environmental hazards. Climate and health are inextricably linked. Climate change, extreme weather events and environmental degradation have fundamental impact on human health and well-being. More people than ever before are exposed to increased climate-related health risks, from poor water and air quality to infectious diseases and heat stress. "Climate change is killing people right now,” said Diarm...

Sharm El-Sheikh Ghealth News - Egypt’s Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad attended the signing of a trilateral MoU between the ministry’s Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA), the Industrial Modernisation Centre (IMC), and the Association for Sustainable Quality of Living (Estidama) to launch the award, the ministry said in a statement on Thursday. The award is meant to encourage sectors and stakeholders to follow an ecofriendly approach and mitigate the effects of climate change, the ministry noted. It will also encourage stakeholders to apply innovation-based initiatives in science and technology to support the measures to combat climate change and achieve the sustainable development goals, the ministry added. The award will be presented to the winners during the C...

The heat soared in the morning - with temperatures hitting a record 40.2C by 12:50 BST GHealth News - In a statement, the WMO noted that the UK’s Met Office has, for the first time, issued a “Red Warning” for exceptional heat, and forecast temperatures reaching 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) on Monday and Tuesday. The current record high temperature in the UK is 38.7 degrees Celsius, which was reached just three years ago. ‘Widespread impacts on people and infrastructure’ “Nights are also likely to be exceptionally warm, especially in urban areas”, said Met Office Chief Meteorologist Paul Gundersen. “This is likely to lead to widespread impacts on people and infrastructure. Therefore, it is important people plan for the heat and consider changing their routines. This level...

GHealth News - Scientists at MIT think they may have finally found a way to reverse climate change. Or, at the least, help ease it some. The idea revolves heavily around the creation and deployment of several thin film-like silicon bubbles. The “space bubbles” as they refer to them, would be joined together like a raft. Once expanded in space it would be around the same size as Brazil. The bubbles would then provide an extra buffer against the harmful solar radiation that comes from the Sun. The goal with these new “space bubbles” would be to ease up or even reverse climate change. The Earth has seen rising temperatures over the past several centuries. In fact, NASA previously released a gif detailing how the global temperature has changed over the years. Now, we’re seeing ...