Climate and Health Council

Medact aims to highlight the health implications of environmental degradation and work towards solutions which are ecologically sound, socially just, and beneficial to human health.

Medacts members are increasingly concerned about the responsibility of health professionals for the impacts of human behaviour on global eco-systems, and the role of environmental factors as determinants of health. Our membership includes leading experts in the fields of climate change and toxicology, who are active in delineating the present and potential damage to human health worldwide.

Medact welcomes the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol by a total of 186 nations. However we are alarmed that the United States, the world's richest, most powerful, and most polluting nation, continues in its refusal to ratify the Protocol. The US constitutes 25% of the global warming problem.

Notwithstanding US non-compliance, the agreement represents a commendable achievement in the face of environmental disaster. We stress the urgency of further, deeper cuts and suggest that the measures currently agreed to, whilst a vital first step, are of less significance than the precedent set and the inbuilt capacity for much bigger emission cuts in future.

To put the deal into perspective, the actual cuts committed to by the 37 richest and most developed nations (after last minute concessions to Japan, Canada and Australia) translate into reductions of around 1-3% of C0₂ released into the atmosphere. This comes nowhere near the immediate cuts of 60-80% demanded by scientists in order to stabilise the climate.

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