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Climate Change Poses Dire Health and Human Rights Risks

Human health relies on healthy ecosystems, but these are under threat because of climate change. Securing the right to live in a healthy environment is crucial for all.

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Climate change

Women queue to plant mangrove saplings along the riverbanks of the Matla river in Sundarbans, India as part of efforts to combat the impacts of climate change. | Avijit Ghosh / Climate Visuals | Credits CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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Climate change has not traditionally been seen as a health and human rights concern — but that may be changing following recent high-profile court cases.

On April 9 the European Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of a group of elderly Swiss women who claimed the government's inadequate efforts to combat climate change put them at risk of dying during heatwaves. And in India, the Supreme Court on April 6 recognised a right against the adverse effects of climate change as a distinct fundamental right in the Constitution.

In that judgement, one of the judges said the rights to life and equality couldn't be fully realised without a clean, stable environment. The court also highlighted the connection between climate change and the right to health.

The World Health Organization has declared climate change to be the greatest threat to health that humanity faces.

Since climate change affects so many aspects of our lives, its effects on health and health care are complex, multiple, and highly variable across geographies, ecozones and development levels.

There are direct impacts on our bodies and communities, such as have emerged with extreme heat, droughts, floods, fires and other climate change-driven catastrophic events.

There also are more complex and indirect impacts, such as increasing food insecurity, the rising threat of infectious diseases, increased exposure to water and air pollutants, the health impacts of forced mobility and migration, and the mental health and social impacts of the climate crisis that affect us on our dee

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