Lauren Sommer reports in NPR that over 200 prominent medical journals issued an unprecedented joint statement, proclaiming a “rapidly warming climate is the ‘greatest threat’ to global public health," and urging world leaders to cut heat-trapping emissions immediately to avoid "catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse."
The joint statement states, "Governments must intervene to support the redesign of transport systems, cities, production and distribution of food, markets for financial investments, health systems, and much more.
“Rises above 1.5° C increase the chance of reaching tipping points in natural systems that could lock the world into an acutely unstable state. This would critically impair our ability to mitigate harms and to prevent catastrophic, runaway environmental change... Insufficient action means that temperature increases are likely to be well in excess of 2° C, a catastrophic outcome for health and environmental stability.”
Read Lauren Sommer’s NPR report here.
The joint statement is linked above.
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