Climate Change Impacting Children Health

In News

A new report published in The Lancet shows that climate change is impacting the health of children across the world.

In-Detail

• The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change is a comprehensive report that tracks 41 indicators. It is a yearly analysis.
• This project is a collaboration of 120 institutions including the World Health Organisation, the World Bank, and University College London.

The Report

• The report notes that climate change is already damaging the health of the children and if the target to limit the warming to well below 2°C is not met, an entire generation of children are bound to suffer.
• The rising temperatures will severely impact the infants.
• They will face malnutrition and rising food prices.
• In India,the average yield potential of maize and rice has gone down by 2% since the 1960s at a time when two-thirds of the deaths of under-five children are due to malnutrition.
• Due to warming, children will suffer the most due to a rise in infectious diseases such as cholera. Caused by Vibrio bacteria, Indian witnessed a 3% rise in cholera cases since the early 1980s.
• As per the report, India with its inequality, malnutrition, and poverty will suffer severe health effects on its children than any other country in the world.
• Diarrhoeal infections, a major cause of child mortality will spread to new areas as deadly heatwaves will soon become the norm, the study notes.
• The report notes that though the government has launched many public health initiatives over the last two decades, climate change is set to reverse the gains achieved over the past 50 years.

Conclusion

Climate change is threatening every aspect of human life. It is time the world governments make good their promises and achieve the climate target of lowering warming to below 2°C.