Climate action must respond to extreme weather driving health crisis, says WHO

An Afghan man walks in what was a wheatfield before drought hit Balkh province. Natural disasters were a daily occurrence, the WHO’s climate envoy said. Photograph: Ali Khara/Reuters

Floods, wildfires, drought and the onslaught of extreme weather are driving a global health crisis that must be put at the centre of climate action, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

“The climate crisis is a health crisis; it drives extreme weather and is taking lives around the world,” Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the WHO, said. “Melting ice caps and rising sea levels are, of course, crucial issues, but for most people they are distant threats in both time and place. The threats of our changing climate are right here and right now.”