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114 HEALTHCLIMATE CHANGE AND THE RIGHT TO HEALTHADDRESS AT THE HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCILFor public health, climate change is the defining issue for the 21st century. The impact of climate change is universal, unpredictable, sometimes contested, and most appealingly photogenic when a stranded polar bear is in the picture. But human beings are unquestionably the most important species threatened by climate change. Climate and weather variables affect the air people breathe, the water they drink, the food they eat, and the chances that they will get infected by a disease.In my view, the health effects of climate change are what matters most. They are right before our eyes, well-known, measurable, scientifically documented, and daunting.WHO estimates that, each year, more than seven million deaths worldwide can be attributed to air pollution. Climate change is also causing tens of thousands of yearly deaths from other causes.Records for extreme weather events are being broken a record number of times. Droughts and floods, storm surges, heatwaves, and wildfires claim human lives and livelihoods.According to the World Meteorological Organization, 2015 was the hottest year since records began in 1880. This year is predicted to be even hotter.Droughts threaten already perilous food supplies, especially in poor countries where subsistence farming is rain-fed. The scale of this threat is immense. Agriculture, including smallholder farming, employs around 60 per cent of the workforce in sub-Saharan Africa and accounts for a third of its gross domestic product. In some countries, more than 70 per cent of the population depends on subsistence farming for a livelihood.Outbreaks of cholera thrive under conditions of too much or too little water. Insects and other carriers of disease are exquisitely sensitive to variations in heat, humidity, and rainfall. Climate change has already given dengue a vastly expanded geographical range and may do the same for malaria.Experts predict that, by 2050, climate change will be causing an additional 250,000 deaths each year just from malaria, diarrhoeal disease, heat stress and undernutrition.A multitude of factors influence the dynamics of outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging diseases. For a mosquito-borne disease, like Zika, climate variables, including the El Nino weather pattern, clearly play a role in fueling international spread.Already, more than half of the world’s population lives in an area where the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the principal vector for Zika, dengue, and chikungunya, are present.Warming temperatures and more rainfall could expand that geographical range even further. These mosquitoes love heat and water left standing in urban containers and trash.“ EXPERTS PREDICT THAT, BY 2050, CLIMATE CHANGE WILL BE CAUSING AN ADDITIONAL 250,000 DEATHS EACH YEAR JUST FROM MALARIA, DIARRHOEAL DISEASE, HEAT STRESS AND UNDERNUTRITION ”DR MARGARET CHAN, DIRECTOR-GENERAL, THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO)