Prof Dr. Edda Weimann, MPH
Why…
Climate protection is health protection
Welcome to my website Climate4Health – healthy people on a healthy planet
Both the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have identified climate change (CC) as the greatest threat to humanity and our survival. We reverse the medical advances of recent decades and reduce life expectancy if we do not protect our natural resources and environment and decarbonise within the next few years. Increased awareness, education and behavioural change are essential. We are facing an emergency situation with dire consequences. If we continue with our current practices, we are heading towards an average temperature increase of more than 3.4°C and an uninhabitable planet. We are now at a crossroads where we must decide whether to continue to commit ecocide and collective suicide, or to use the scientific evidence to create a new way of living that is sustainable, net zero carbon, and improves our health and well-being. To increase understanding and sense of urgency, it is imperative to increase climate literacy in order to leave climate neverland and actively combat climate hell. Caring for our planet and our survival should be at the forefront of everyone’s minds.
Why is this for us important working in the healthcare sector: The healthcare sector is the world’s fifth largest emitter, accounting for 5.3 % of global emissions. Therefore, it is imperative to create net-zero healthcare systems worldwide to reduce the health impacts on the population.
“The most ordinary cause of people´s mistakes is their being too much frightened at the present danger, and not so at what is remote.” Nobody is coming to save us – we have to do it ourselves. And we can, if we put our minds to it.
Sir David Attenborough, People’s Advocate for COP 26: address to World Leaders | Climate Action
You Tube Video – Address Sir David Attenborough
The latest IPPC report is code RED. The climate situation can only be described as dramatic. UN-Chief Guterres said at a press conference on 15th June 2023: „The era of global boiling has arrived. … We are on a highway to climate hell. We are in the fight of our lives, and we are losing.”
The positive news are – climate action is the solution to climate hell! Let´s do it together and start now!
Africa is the continent with the lowest emissions, apart from South Africa, which is one of the high emitting countries with its coal-based industries and coal-fired power plants. Yet Africa has become a hotspot for many climate-related crises: Severe droughts, storms, floods, prolonged cyclones like Freddy in 2023, deteriorating air quality and overall a heavy burden of plastic pollution on the African landscape. The old colonial structures of the exploitation of the people and of the land are still in place. No wonder that Greenpeace Africa protests at hotspots.
Currently the Southern Africa (Angola, Zimbabwe, parts of Botswana and South Africa, Kruger Park and many other national parks experience a severe drought. They have had the lowest rainfall in the last 40 years. This has detrimental effects on the health of the population.
Climate action means health protection 