College responds to the 10th report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change

College responds to the 10th report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change  

The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (“the College”) has responded to the findings of the 10th indicator report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change. The report identifies that a number of the health harms of climate change have continued to increase in the last decade. It highlights growing heat-related deaths and the impact of extreme drought and calls for climate change to be formally recognised and addressed as a global health emergency.

Commenting Professor Mark Strachan, President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, said:

The Lancet Countdown report is extremely concerning in terms of setting out how a number of the health harms of climate change are continuing to increase rapidly despite previous international agreements to try to tackle the climate crisis and global warming.

From heat-related illness and deaths to the wider impacts on food security, air quality and healthcare systems, the health consequences of climate change are becoming ever more impossible to ignore. The College supports calls to place health at the heart of climate policy internationally and to treat climate change with the urgency that a global health emergency demands.

We will continue to speak up on this on behalf of our Fellows and Members based in more than one hundred countries across the planet- many of whom are witnessing the impacts of climate change on the health of their patients-  and to work constructively with other health organisations to ensure that governments are prioritising policies that safeguard health, reduce emissions and build resilience to climate-related risks.

Professor Jill Belch, chair of the College’s Advisory Forum on the Environment, said:

This report should be a wake-up call to governments everywhere. Climate change is not just an environmental problem for future generations; it is a health emergency that is already costing thousands of lives.

What is frustrating is that we know what needs to be done. Reducing our dependence on fossil fuels would not only slow climate change but also deliver immediate health benefits through cleaner air, preventing both illness and premature deaths.

The science is clear, the solutions are available, and the longer we delay, the greater the price we will pay in human lives.

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The Lancet report can be read here: https://www.thelancet.com/countdown-health-climate