Today's 2018
Global Climate Change
Medical Emergency Response
Climate change is an existential threat to humanity (UN Director General, 2018)

 EMISSIONS EMERGENCY All sources agree that global emissions must decline rapidly from 2020, including the 2018 IPCC 1.5C Report.   Global emissions for 2018 was another record high. National emissions targets (2018) lead to a substantial INCREASE in emissions by 2030 projected to cause a catastrophic warming of 3.2C by 2100 (Climate Action Tracker). The US Trump Republican administration is boosting production of America's enormous fossil fuel deposits to the maximum. Canada's  tar sands mining continues to expand. China is building more coal plants in and outside of China (Coalswarm). 

GHG POLLUTION EMERGENCY Greenhouse gas pollution indicators and direct effects are all increasing fast (StateofOurClimate.com).

FOSSIL AIR POLLUTION is killing millions/ year (Effects of fossil fuel ..emissions removal on public health, J. Lelieveld, 2 April 2019) 

2017 Lancet Countdown:                                                      Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change

GLOBAL SURFACE TEMPERATURE INCREASE                                  NASA and WMO estimate 1.0C global warming for 2017. 2016 was the record at 1.1C. The 2015-16 El Nino was an influence but no one expected the climate system to be so sensitive. El Nino warmer periods are projected to increase under global warming 

 WORST NEWS EVER ON CO2  'GHG Concentrations Surge to New Record' with 'abrupt' CO2 rate of increase 'without past precdent' (WMO 30 Oct 2017)

The 2015 UN Paris Agreement is not working A May 2016 Update of national emissions targets (May 2016) projects global emissions will be 16% HIGHER in 2030. There has been improvement in the national emissions targets (August 2018).

We now have Fracking increasing oil and natural gas production. Fracking is literally a planet destroying technology. See PSR's 2016 Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking

Reuters 23.6.2015 Climate change health risk "medical emergency", experts warn. For full report: Lancet report Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health. 

May 2015: World Medical Association urges doctors to advise their governments (this year 2015) that climate change is the greatest global health challenge of the 21st century.

                                       What to do about it today

1. Write to governments urging them to terminate fossil fuel subsidies, which are US$Trillions/yr (globally IMF 2015) and to cost fossil fuel pollution. These obvious market failure correction measures have been approved for years by the G8, the IMF, World Bank, OECD, and International Energy Agency.

Lancet 2015 chart of health impacts 

The charts below show conclusively that the world is in an extremely grave state of climate change planetary emergency. Below is from the WMO Greenhouse Gas Budget. Atmospheric CO2 is now 408 ppm (Scripps). 

Click chart below for IPCC 2014 (last assessment) adverse health implicated effects

A specific, simple emergency intervention to save our future for world medical and health organizations

Today, the only climate or energy plan that the world has is suicidal.

Atmospheric greenhouse gases are increasing faster than ever, at an unprecedented rate (see Our Climate).

Atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs)

The series of GHG graphs above shows our dire emergency situation. Today's atmospheric GHGs are far above their 800,000 year maximum, have abruptly increased from 1900, and CO2 is still accelerating.

National medical and health organizations can make a great difference by writing to their national governments.

We would, of course, like all medical and health organizations to declare the global climate change and ocean acidification planetary emergency.

GHG Emissions

The emergency is all the more more dire because GHG emissions are at record highs, and there are no international policy plans in place to change this. Below is the last EU report on emissions (by their source) and the US EPA record of global emissions (by gas). Fossil fuel CO2 emissions increased to a new record high in 2017 (IEA). 

Climate change is set to inflict "severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts" on people and the natural world unless carbon emissions are cut sharply and rapidly (IPCC statement Lima UN climate conference 2014).

Yet the World Medical Association, in urging governments to act, noted that the December 2014 COP20 negotiations in Lima, Peru made little progress. "As negotiators look toward Paris, it is imperative that governments commit to addressing the devastating health implications of unmitigated climate change," said Dr. Haikerwal, Chair of the WMA Council. The Paris Agreement demoted Kyoto national emissions commitments to non-binding target intentions (INDCs).  

"Declare global climate change a global public health emergency"
1 Oct 2014 BMJ to WHO 

               "Climate change & the carbon-intensive economy                  are responsible for 5 million deaths each year"
DARA Climate Vulnerability Monitor 2012

"WE HAVE REACHED A POINT OF PLANETARY EMERGENCY...."
— NASA's Dr. James Hansen
VIDEO James Hansen 2008 Speech

The situation for our future is now critical.

• Negotiations have led to the 2015 Paris Agreement but as of May 2016 global emissions are projected by the UN to be 16% HIGHER  by 2030. All energy plans are for continued fossil fuel dominance and dependence.
• There is no international plan to put emissions into rapid decline. World fossil fuel subsidies are $Trillions a year (IMF 2015) and there is no plan for global price on carbon. 
• Atmospheric CO2 is the highest it has been in 3-5 million years, increasing at an unprecedented rate (IPCC 2007, 2014 ) and now faster than ever without past precedent (WMO 2017).
• Atmospheric methane is over double its 800,000 year maximum, (ice core data) now increasing fast.
• Extreme weather events and drought — affecting crop yields — are increasing, including in the Northern hemisphere.
• Ocean acidification is accelerating, increasing faster than in the past 300 million years (Hönis ; see References), by atmospheric CO2.
• We are absolutely committed (locked in) to a warming of 1.5ºC by 2100 due to climate system inertias (IPCC AR5).

We must declare the planetary climate change emergency.

We must prepare for the worst ever environmental and population health calamity — of unprecedented proportions.

Many warnings have been issued, but it is going to take enormous pressure to persuade governments, intent on supporting further fossil fuel energy expansion, that an emergency response is imperative for our future survival.

"Staying above 350 ppm CO2 for long risks irreversible
catastrophic effects." (We are now over 395 ppm.)
— James Hansen in Target Atmospheric CO2, 2009 [pdf]

              "Climate change is the biggest global health threat                of the 21st century."
— Lancet and University College London Institute for Global Health Commission, 2009 in Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change 

"Human-induced climate change requires urgent action."
— American Geophysical Union revised global climate change statement, August 2013

"In the face of an absolutely unprecedented emergency, society has no choice but to take dramatic action to avert a collapse of civilization."
— Blue Planet Laureates, February 2012 to Rio+20

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LEVEL OF THE PLANETARY EMERGENCY
Latest Must-Know Climate Change Emergency News

"The last decade was the hottest on record. 
— NOAA, State of the Climate in 2012, 2013

The world's best Northern Hemisphere food-producing regions have experienced episodic severe heat, drought and extreme weather events that have damaged crops.

"In most countries there is a discernible reduction in crop yield trends due to climate change."
— D. Lobell et al, in Science, May 2011

All Arctic carbon feedbacks are now kicking in. Carbon feedbacks are, by definition, the most dangerous effect of global warming because they boost global warming further. The Arctic is switching from carbon sink to source (NOAA Arctic Report card 2016) The Arctic contains massive vulnerable pools of carbon.

"Global climates only slightly warmer than today are sufficient to thaw significant regions of permafrost." Siberian permafrost has a tipping point of a 1.5ºC global warming.
— A. Vaks et al, in Science, February 2013

Analyses by the Climate Interactive Scoreboard and Climate Action Tracker show that current unconditional national 'intended' emissions reduction targets commit the world to a 3.2ºC temperature increase by 2100, which is a commitment to much higher warming long after 2100  (due to inertia of the ocean heat lag).

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There is still no formal acknowledgement of the climate change emergency or that the world is beyond dangerous interference with the climate system (1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change). The latest UN climate conferences have led to the UN Paris Agreement , which includes various 'intended' national emissions reduction targets but no binding commitments. 

"The potential for runaway greenhouse warming is real and has never been more clear."
— UNEP Year Book, 2009

Global climate change and other ongoing persistent global environmental problems "threaten humanity's very survival.... The need couldn't be more urgent ... to act now to safeguard our own survival and that of future generations."
— UNEP GEO-4, 2007

"Effects of climate change on health will affect most populations in the next decades and put the lives and wellbeing of billions of people at increased risk."
— Lancet and University College London Institute for Global Health Commission, in Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change [pdf]

"Unless decisive action is taken now, the world will face global public health and environmental catastrophe. We believe that the health and healthcare community can, and must, spearhead a major movement for change."
— The Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom

"If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."
— Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007

We are tracking close to the worst case global emissions scenario (2017) headed for over four degrees of global warming by 2100 and much higher long after 2100 , which constitutes a climate change planetary emergency and a threat to the very survival of humanity. 

(Figure 1 below)

Figure 1: Today's global greenhouse gas emissions are tracking towards
the IPCC's worst case scenario.

TIME IS RUNNING OUT FOR SAFEGUARDING HUMANITY
AND LIFE ON EARTH

Doctors and concerned professionals in other leading institutions have a vital role to play in safeguarding future generations from planetary catastrophe — but only by acting today.

Why healthcare professionals? The medical community is in a special position to respond to this crisis. There is no profession better qualified to understand the huge risks humanity is running, to define "dangerous" climate change, and to prescribe the best remedial measures for diminishing the disaster and preventing total climate catastrophe.

The declaration of this planetary climate change emergency and summons to a global emergency response would naturally come first from these professions.

Only an international declaration of a state of global climate change emergency can rapidly rectify this situation, by leading to a concerted international emergency response to rescue all future generations.

Nations are still targeting the 1996 EU policy compromise of 2ºC global warming, which according to the latest science is disastrous and invites catastrophe. (More...)

It is CLIMATE CHANGE EMERGENCY MEDICAL RESPONSE's mission to help concerned professionals (especially doctors) contribute to remedying this situation, and to link with support from other concerned citizens.

The world needs policies and planning based on the avoidance of any risk of irreversible, catastrophic climate change tipping points. This site therefore addresses the worst risks as well as the worst predicted impacts. (More...)

Why the urgency? In short, all indicators are increasing fast and the most vital ones are accelerating (StateofOurPlanet.com). 

All carbon feedbacks to global warming are now operant. This is a climate change emergency. With

• the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere still accelerating at an unprecedented rate at a 3-5 million year high. 
• atmospheric methane (currently 2.5 times preindustrial levels) which is over 80 times as powerful as CO2 for warming, is increasing fast.
• GHG emissions have never been higher
• thawing permafrost emitting methane, CO2 and nitrous oxide
• ocean acidification at a 20 million year is accelerating (NOAA

a large risk of passing irreversible, catastrophic tipping points now clearly exists. (More...)

There is still no formal statement that the world is beyond "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system" (UN climate convention) and no declaration of a global climate crisis or planetary state of emergency.

Industrialized nations continue to block the way to any fast acting binding agreement that would prevent catastrophic global climate change. The Paris Agreement is another delay.

Medical debate about global warming has so far emphasized the planning and response to global climate change. It is therefore timely that we draw a parallel to medical involvement in the nuclear weapons disarmament movement in the 1980s....

Doctors now have a similar particular responsibility in the fight to achieve urgent international reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. Firstly, we can point to the futility of expending our energy, enterprise and long-term investment in advancing health care in the absence of action to preserve a livable planet....

We can [also] inform the debate with reliable data on the health consequences of global warming, and use our professional voice and leadership to instill it with urgency.

— Dr. Richard F. Kefford, Professor of Medicine 
University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

CLIMATE CHANGE EMERGENCY MEDICAL RESPONSE assists in building a global voice of concerned professionals, particularly healthcare professionals, to ensure a healthy and habitable planet for future generations — of all species. The emergency medical responses suggested in this website are based on:

• the most current scientific research
• the leading expert opinions on the risks to humanity
• an agreement that humanity is far beyond dangerous interference with the climate system
• a common understanding that humans are facing a dire and unprecedented planetary climate change emergency.

What's the first step? Click on the Climate Change Emergency button below for immediate action steps, or on a link to the left to learn about the risks and to see how doctors and other healthcare professionals can take action on global climate change.

No New Treaty

Stalled UN climate negotiations mean no new treaty is on the way, heightening the climate emergency.

Evidence

Just as doctors seek evidence when making a diagnosis, this page links to evidence of the climate change emergency for health professionals who want to learn about their role in mitigation.

State of the Climate

State of the Climate is a research summary on methane emissions and other carbon feedbacks, especially in the Arctic, which threaten life on Earth.

Dangers

Dangers of global warming and climate change

Defining Dangerous Climate Change

Defining dangerous climate change impacts and risks in terms of threats to human population health and survival is something the health care profession is qualified to do.

Climate Science

Climate science includes essential aspects of global climate science to explain why today's global warming is twice what we think it is.

Climate Change Commitment

Already committed or locked in global warming

Emergency Action

EMERGENCY ACTION is a one-stop webpage for doctors and other health care professionals who want to respond to the climate change emergency.

Why Climate Change is an Emergency

Here is abundant evidence showing why climate change is an emergency and an increasing threat to the very survival of humanity.

Food Security and Climate Change

The biggest health risk of global climate change will be its impact on food security, yet climate models don't include all the adverse effects of climate change on agriculture.

Why the 2 Degree Target is Far Too High

Although the 2 degree target for global warming is now almost a universally accepted policy position for global climate change mitigation, it is disastrously high!

IPCC

IPCC climate change assessments

The UNFCCC (Climate Change Convention) and Health

These excerpts from the UNFCCC (the United Nations climate change convention) highlight the intersections between climate change, health and policy.

Climate Change Solutions

This page lists global warming and climate change solutions for health professionals to promote.

Climate Change Emergency Declaration

We call on our healthcare, other professional associations, religious and our governments to make a climate change emergency declaration on behalf of present and future vulnerable populations.

The Medical Response to Climate Change is Growing

The medical response to climate change is growing. Medical associations, medical journals and medical researchers are starting to focus on the impacts of climate change on human and population health.

Climate Change Emergency Links

Climate change emergency links to educational and action websites on the greatest threat ever.

Follow-Up

Follow-up is a list of ways that doctors and other healthcare workers can disseminate and teach what they have learned about the global climate change emergency.

Mission of Climate Change Emergency Medical Response

The mission of Climate Change Emergency Medical Response is to provide a one-stop resource on the planetary climate change emergency and remedial action.

Climate Change Emergency References

This climate change emergency references page lists the citations of research studies on the current state of the climate and why it is heading to climate catastrophe.

Climate Change Emergency Updates

Check out these climate change emergency updates on a regular basis, to see what's new in the science of global climate change.

About

About this site and who we are

Site Map

This is a site map of Climate Change Emergency Medical Response.org.