38 HEALTHCARE
WHO Director-General on health and climate
Dr Margaret Chan , WHO Director-General
Opening remarks at the Conference on Health and Climate Geneva , Switzerland 27 August 2014
Excellencies , honourable ministers , distinguished participants , colleagues in the United Nations system , ladies and gentlemen ,
It is good to see so many ministers here . Let me warmly welcome you to this conference on health and climate . Thank you for giving us your expertise and your time . You have an important job to do .
Debates about climate change are still not giving sufficient attention to the profound effects that climate variables have on health .
In my view , the well-documented health effects are what matters most . Climate and weather affect the air people breathe , the food they eat , and the water they drink .
Signals about what human activities have done to the environment are becoming increasingly shrill . Records for extreme weather events are being broken a record number of times .
Our planet is losing its capacity to sustain human life in good health . Earlier this year , the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its most disturbing report to date , with a strong focus on the consequences for health . That report also underscored specific health interventions that strengthen resilience to climate change and contribute to sustainable development .
I am aware of speculation that climate change may influence the frequency of outbreaks of Ebola virus disease
In March , The World Health Organization revised its estimates of the health effects of air pollution upwards . In 2012 , exposure to air pollution killed around 7 million people worldwide , making it the world ’ s largest single environmental health risk .
Climate variables contribute to natural disasters , with their related population displacements , lost livelihoods , destroyed infrastructures , and conditions of crowding and filth that favour explosive outbreaks of disease . Diarrhoeal diseases , the second biggest killer of young children , flourish under such conditions ..
Many of the world ’ s most worrisome diseases have transmission cycles that are profoundly shaped by conditions of heat and humidity and patterns of rainfall . As one important example ,