Climate crisis threatens the health of one billion children, also from Poland: report
22:51
Infectious, chronic, civilization, and mental diseases are just some of the health consequences of the climate crisis. Children are most exposed to the loss of health and even life in the face of progressive climate change, also in Poland, according to the latest report of the Climate Coalition, HEAL Poland, and the International Association of Medicine Students (IFMSA-Poland).
As a result of the progressing climate crisis, the health of children and adolescents is also increasingly threatened in today's Poland. Extreme weather phenomena, including increasingly longer and more frequent heatwaves, successive temperature records, droughts, and destructive fires, hurricane winds, or torrential rains, causing flooding and flooding, increasingly threaten our health and life directly and indirectly.
"This group includes the effects of more frequent extreme weather events, such as floods, storms, and tornadoes, which directly threaten the health and life of children by drowning, suffering from bodily injuries sometimes resulting in disability, infection with infectious diseases through contaminated water and food, and loss of or separation from caregivers,” the report reads.
In addition, disasters can affect the mental health of children.
“Children are smaller and weigh less than adults, but their skin surface area to weight ratio is greater than that of adults. As a result, children are more exposed to stress related to overcooling or overheating,” read on.
Heatwaves can directly cause such dangers to their health as dehydration, heatstroke, electrolyte imbalance, and increased incidence of infectious diseases, kidney and respiratory diseases.
Citing the director of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the authors of the report argue that the climate crisis is one of the most pressing challenges related to the protection of public health for all people in the world.
“Research conducted around the world shows that climate change has a significant negative impact on human health, with the youngest being a particularly vulnerable group. It is particularly tragic that children under five are most at risk,” prof. Zbigniew Karaczun from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, an expert of the Climate Coalition, an agreement between 27 non-governmental organizations involved in activities for climate protection, noted.
