This is an editorial on climate change that is being published simultaneously by 100+ health care journal to marshal collective action to tackle the global environmental crisis. We—the editors of ...health journals worldwide—call for urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1.5°C and halt the destruction of nature.
The United Nations General Assembly in September 2021 will bring countries together at a critical time for organizing collective action to tackle the global environmental crisis. Countries will meet ...again at the biodiversity summit in Kunming, China, and at the climate conference (COP26) in Glasgow, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Ahead of these pivotal meetings, we, the editors of health journals worldwide, call for urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1.5 °C, halt the destruction of nature and protect health. Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and the destruction of the natural world, a state of affairs health professionals have been bringing attention to for decades.1 The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5 °C above the preindustrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.2,3 Despite the world's necessary preoccupation with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), we cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions.
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