By Helen Gloege ‘23
Staff Writer
On Sept. 5, over 230 medical journals from across the world came together to publish a joint statement demanding “urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1.5 C, halt the destruction of nature and protect health.” Authors of the statement believed that action had to be taken immediately — it was not possible to wait for the COVID-19 pandemic to fade. The joint statement, which NPR referred to as “unprecedented” in a Sept. 7 article, involved prominent members of medical journals from around the world.
The statement came at a crucial time for the environmental justice movement. In the coming months, there will be several conferences between countries that could result in major actions against climate change. This includes the United Nations General Assembly, which will begin its sessions for the year on Sept. 14. The assembly facilitates international collaboration on global issues including climate change. In October, the UN Biodiversity Conference will take place in Kunming, China. The aim of the conference is to adopt the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework that will focus on international work to repair biodiversity loss.
Beginning on Oct. 31, the UN Climate Change Conference, commonly referred to as COP26, will be held in Glasgow, United Kingdom. COP26 is focused on movement toward the goals of the Paris Agreement. However, as the joint statement warned, the conference is encountering barriers due to the coronavirus pandemic. COP26 is currently facing controversy due to inequitable vaccine rollout policies that will prevent delegates and activists who represent areas most affected by climate change from participating.
One of the main focuses of the statement is mitigating climate change and its health impacts, in light of the strain U.S. healthcare systems are already under. During the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals faced shortages in supplies, including beds for sick patients. Health infrastructure was also put under stress during and immediately after Hurricane Ida, which “caused dozens of deaths across several states,” according to NPR. Some of these deaths were the result of flash flooding and inclement weather, but others came from the failures of infrastructure that was not prepared for the hurricane.
The statement had nineteen authors including editors, doctors, researchers and professors, all representing a variety of different backgrounds and interests. They study and teach everything from psychiatry to neuroscience to nutrition. The authors hail from universities and scientific journals from around the world, including Pakistan, Brazil and Denmark. This international and cross-disciplinary collaboration represents the global nature of both the problems caused by climate change and their solutions.
The joint statement shows an important and influential push from the participating authors and scientific journals. Upcoming climate talks and conferences may provide ways forward to mitigate and control climate change effects and avoid the worst consequences of climate change.