14 DAY TRIAL // In a recent assessment, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that human-induced changes in the Earth's climate now lead to at least 5 million cases of illness and more than 150,000 deaths every year.
Temperature fluctuations may affect human health in a surprising number of ways, scientists have learned, from influencing the spread of infectious diseases to boosting the likelihood of illness-inducing heat waves and floods.
Now, a team of health and climate scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and WHO has shown that the growing health impacts of climate change affect different regions in different ways.
Ironically, the places that have contributed the least to warming the Earth are the most vulnerable to the death and disease higher temperatures can bring.
"Those least able to cope and least responsible for the greenhouse gases that cause global warming are most affected," says lead author Jonathan Patz.
Africa has some of the lowest per-capita emissions of greenhouse gases. Yet, regions of the continent are gravely at risk for warming-related disease.
"Many of the most important diseases in poor countries, from malaria to diarrhea and malnutrition, are highly sensitive to climate," says co-author Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum of WHO.
The United States, the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases, has yet to ratify the Kyoto treaty. Patz and his colleagues outlined the need for the U.S. and the European nations to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases.