Durban

Climate talks in Durban, South Africa, have ended. Developing and developed countries both agreed that a deal to slash emissions “with legal force” would begin in 2020. This has been hailed by Climate Change Minister Greg Combet as a ““significant milestone”. But today on The Punch a youth delegate at the conference, Melia Condon, explains that one thing keeps getting left out of discussions about climate change: it will have a serious impact on our health.

Increases in temperature, extreme weather events and sea level rises are not the impacts of climate change we should be most concerned about in the short term.

It is often overlooked that even just a small change to our environment can have a profound impact on human health. Meanwhile, the size of endemic areas and severity of vector, food and water-borne infectious diseases are on the rise. As are tropical storms, floods and droughts that many Australians are all too familiar with and the flow on effects to malnutrition and mental health in some cases.

Continue reading "The world’s running a fever and it’s going to make us sick" »