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UNEP says climate change heightens human health risks

Xinhua, May 24, 2016 Adjust font size:

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has linked drought and flooding to the growing incidences of toxic ingredients in food substances such as cyanide in food, which is responsible for the death of millions of people worldwide.

Jacqueline McGlade, UNEP Chief Scientist said on Monday the effects of climate change were to blame for the increasing incidences of cyanide in food substances, mostly as a result of poisonous aflotoxins.

"There are toxic issues for human health caused by the aflotoxins affecting human food. The maize is responding to drought and flooding sometimes as a result of moisture content in the storage. This causes aflotixins. The question is what we do to deal with this aspect of climate change," McGlade said.

UNEP said in a new report released in Nairobi at the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) that at least 12.6 million people died in 2012 as a result of unhealthy environment.

UNEP warned the environmental risks have their greatest toll on young children and older people.

At the UNEA meeting in Nairobi, where 130 ministers of environment are part of the 2,500 delegates in attendance to discuss a set of regulations to combat environmental risks, UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said there was an urgent need to deal effectively with climate change.

"Our emphasis on growing our economies in the name of development is starting to kill many people. If you know something is killing somebody else and you continue to do it, then it is deliberate," Steiner said.

The UNEA meeting, emphasizing on the need to deal effectively with climate change, has expressed concern at the risk of diseases spreading globally at a much faster pace.

Braulio Diaz, the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) said the effects of climate change were posing a risk to the spread of vector-bourne diseases worldwide.

"Agriculture would be affected worldwide. We are also loosing the genetic basis of our food production which will make it impossible for us to respond to food insecurity. This is worsened by ecosystem degradation and the health ecosystem which is important to us," Diaz regretted.

The UNEA meeting is discussing responses to climate change and the factors leading to premature deaths amid new reports that attribute 8.2 million deaths worldwide to non-communicable diseases. Enditem