Posts Tagged ‘Featured’

Pacific island countries and people have many mutually reinforcing perspectives on global climate change. Pacific island countries and territories (PICTs) are minor emitters of greenhouse gases. Still, they are on the frontline to experience the many serious, adverse consequences of the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Engineers for Social Responsibility and the Sustainable Energy Forum are concerned about the consequences of human-induced climate change and global warming and the need for widespread understanding of the facts and underlying science.

Human-caused climate change is a serious and urgent threat to human health. Climate change and its environmental manifestations (e.g. warmer temperatures, more heat waves, altered rainfall patterns, more extreme weather such as heavy rainfall events and/or drought, tropical storms, sea-level rise) result in many risks to human health, both direct and indirect, that are recognised by world health authorities and leading medical journals alike.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its latest report on March 31, 2014. This report was the second instalment of the Fifth Assessment Report, prepared by Working Group 2, on impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation to climate change. In this Comment, we, as contributors to the chapter on human health, explain how the IPCC report was prepared and highlight important findings.