By Ritah Kemigisa
The World Health Organization has urgently called for the need to protect health and mitigate the climate crisis.
This comes as the World Marks Health day.
The WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom says the climate crisis is a health crisis adding that the same unsustainable choices that are killing the planet are killing people.
On Monday, the World Health Organization issued a shocking report noting that 99% of people breathe unhealthy air – mainly resulting from the burning of fossil fuels.
The World Health body has now warned that the steadily heating world is seeing mosquito-borne diseases spreading farther and faster, than ever before.
Extreme weather events, biodiversity loss, land degradation and water scarcity are displacing people and affecting health, while pollution and plastics found at the bottom of the world’s deepest oceans and highest mountains are increasingly making their way into food chains and blood streams.
The WHO further reveals that the systems that produce highly processed, unhealthy foods and beverages, are driving a wave of obesity, increasing cancer and heart disease while generating up to a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The theme for World Health Day is Take climate action, take care of each other.
