Climate change is expected to exacerbate already prevalent health problems in the near future.
The effects will be most prevalent in populations and regions that are already influenced by climate-related disease, a World Health Organization (WHO) news release reported.
Some conditions that could be affected by future climes include: "undernutrition resulting from reductions in food production; injury and disease due to intense heat-waves and fires; shifts in the timing and spatial distribution of food, water and vector-borne diseases; and lost work capacity and reduced [labor] productivity in vulnerable populations," the news release reported.
These conclusions were made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC's) fifth assessment report on climate change.
"The temperatures of global land and ocean surfaces are rising. Changes in extreme weather have been observed since 1950: the number of cold days and nights has decreased and the number of warm ones has increased globally. Frequent heat-waves over large parts of Europe, Asia and Australia, and heavy precipitation in North America and Europe are creating increasingly hazardous living conditions for people living in poverty. Oceans are warming; the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have lost mass, and the global mean sea level is rising," the news release reported.
While worldwide health burdens related to climate change are relatively low at this time, things are most likely only going to get worse in the future.
Reducing greenhouse gases and taking other similar actions could help reduce these health risks, such as those imposed by pollution. Cutting down methane and black carbon emissions could help not only slow global warming, but save millions of lives.
The cost of greenhouse-gas mitigation could be made up for in saved medical costs related to rising temperatures.
Recent studies have predicted a warming of four to seven degrees Celsius across the globe in "high-end climate scenarios," this would leave parts of the world uninhabitable during certain parts of the year.
"Responding to the effects of climate change often requires making decisions with high levels of uncertainty and having to adapt planning processes. Nevertheless, more needs to be done," the news release reported.
