If our planet were a patient, it would enter intensive care. His vital signs are alarming. He has a fever, as the last nine months have been the hottest on record, as we hurtle inexorably towards the 1.5 degree threshold. Their lung capacity has deteriorated due to the destruction of forests that absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. And many of the Earth's water resources—its lifeblood—are contaminated. But the most worrying thing of all is that his condition is rapidly worsening.
Is it any wonder, then, that human health suffers when the health of the planet on which we depend is in danger? The health of human beings, animals and the environment in which we live are intertwined in an inextricable but fragile bond. We inhabit a single ecosystem that teeters in precarious balance. This is no discovery. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, already wrote in the 5th century BC that “the doctor treats, but nature heals.”
We are now in the process of relearning what humans have always known, but since the industrial revolution, we have forgotten or discarded: that when we harm our environment, we harm ourselves.
For centuries we have plundered our planet. Now we pay the price with a triple planetary crisis: climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution.
There are, of course, the immediate effects of more frequent and extreme weather events, causing deaths and injuries, and damage to health facilities and other essential infrastructure.
There are also the medium and long-term consequences: More heat waves contribute to an increase in cardiovascular diseases; air pollution drives lung cancer, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases; chemicals such as lead cause intellectual disability and cardiovascular and kidney diseases; some pesticides are associated with higher suicide rates in countries where they are easily available; and drought and water scarcity affect food production, making healthy diets less affordable.
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Small island developing States are particularly at risk, as arable land declines as sea levels rise.
At the same time, climate change causes changes in the behavior, distribution, movement, range and density of mosquitoes, birds and other animals that spread infectious diseases, such as dengue and malaria, to new areas.
Since the turn of the century, the number of reported cases of dengue has increased eight-fold, a disease that now affects more than 130 countries.
Illegal wildlife trade also increases the risk of zoonotic transmission, which can trigger a pandemic, underscoring the importance of primary prevention to reduce risks.
Health threats from climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss are not hypothetical risks that could occur in the future. They are here and now, and that is why health is the most compelling reason for climate action. However, almost 30 years after the first United Nations Climate Change Conference, the Conference of the Parties at its 28th session (COP28), held in Dubai last year, was the first to include a day dedicated to health.
The WHO estimates that pollution, waste and chemicals cause around 14 million deaths a year, or around a quarter of the global burden of disease.
Now, the effects are not equitable. Residents of low- and middle-income countries bear the brunt of the health consequences, especially in rapidly developing urban areas.
WHO is supporting countries around the world to prepare for and respond to these threats, making their health systems safer and more climate-resilient, and providing the data needed for tools to address them. to the health effects of pollution, waste and chemicals.
But no body can do this alone. The causes of the crisis are multisectoral. So are its effects, and so must the response. Collectively, we are responsible for this disaster. And collectively we must find a solution.
For this reason, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Environment Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and the World Organization for Animal Health collaborate in a group called the Quadripartite Alliance, which has aims to help countries adopt a “One health”recognizing that policies relating to human health, animal health, agriculture and the environment must build on and reinforce each other.
At the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi last week, countries adopted important resolutions on air quality, chemicals and waste, sustainable lifestyles, potentially hazardous pesticides and water policy, all of which are important in the objective of promoting sustained and multisectoral action to protect the health of people and the planet.
They also committed to continue working on negotiating an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution.
The One Health approach is also a crucial element in the legally binding agreement on pandemics that WHO Member States are currently negotiating.
The patient is in danger. And putting tape on it won't solve the problem. We need transformative action at national, regional and global levels in energy and transportation systems, food systems and health systems. And as United Nations agencies, we must do everything we can to break free from our siled mindsets and work together to implement effective, inclusive and sustainable multilateral action, because we have no other choice.
On Christmas Eve 1967, less than four months after his assassination, Martin Luther King said: “It really comes down to this: all of life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable web of reciprocity, wrapped in a single garment of destiny. What affects one destination, affects everyone indirectly.”
Despite everything that differentiates us, we are one species, we share the same DNA and the same planet. We have no future but a common future.
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