Strong climate agreement critical to global public health: WHO experts

A binding climate agreement that slows the pace of global climate change can help avert millions of deaths annually, said World Health Organization (WHO) experts at a press conference on the sidelines of the ongoing Paris climate conference on Wednesday.

"People tend to think that this treaty is about environment, about protecting the planet, about protecting the species. But in fact it's also about our health ... The measures you need to take to fight climate change are the basic public health interventions," said Maira Neira, director of public health, environmental and social determinants of health (PHE) for the organization.

The averted deaths would be both from the direct impacts of climate change and from air pollutants that also warm the planet.

"Climate change is presenting an absolutely fundamental threat to health throughout the world," said Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, also of PHE, WHO.

"The good news is that if we have a good agreement and a good mitigation policy in place, we will save a lot of money as well as a lot of investment that is now dedicated to treat the patients that are having chronic diseases and dying because of the pollution," added Neira.

WHO estimated that by 2030, climate change would cause an additional 250,000 deaths each year from malaria, diarrheal disease, heat stress, and under-nutrition.

Meanwhile, WHO estimated that more than seven million people die each year from air pollution related diseases. Endit