Editorial: Time to treat the climate and nature crisis as one indivisible global health emergency

Read the full editorial here: https://www.bmj.com/content/383/bmj.p2355

An editorial published in more than 200 health journals around the world has called for the climate and nature crisis to be recognised as one indivisible global health emergency. The editorial is published in leading titles from around the world, including The BMJ, The Lancet, JAMA, the Medical Journal of Australia, the East African Medical Journal, the National Medical Journal of India and Dubai Medical Journal.

It is the third in a series of annual multi-journal editorials published ahead of the UN Climate Conferences in 2026, 2027 and 2028 coordinated by the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change.

This year, the editors say that the combined climate and nature crises are already having major effects on health, including loss of life from extreme weather events, heatwaves, air pollution, and the spread of infectious diseases, which will continue to worsen as global temperatures rise.

They say we are facing a global public health emergency which must be recognised for what it is, and call on the WHO to make this declaration before or at the seventy-seventh World Health Assembly in May 2024.

An open petition has been launched to support the call to WHO. More information, including how to sign the petition is available here.