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Climate change and risks to health – what needs to be done?
Heat waves, wildfires and flooding have become more common and intense in recent years, posing substantial risks to society and people’s health.
It has led to 200 academic health journals calling on governments to take emergency action to tackle the “catastrophic harm to health” from climate change, ahead of the COP26 climate conference in November.
Experts from Durham University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences will be discussing this topic in the latest webinar as part our international Knowledge Across Borders series.
Climate change – the future
The climate experts will present the scientific evidence for human’s influence on historical climate change and outline possible climate futures.
They will show how extreme climate events might change in years to come based on climate model projections, and what the consequences would be for human health.
Unless action is taken, the impacts on public health are expected to be substantial.
Protecting health
Climate models and projections can help to inform the development of necessary action plans to minimise the physical and mental health impacts of extreme climate events, such as heat waves.
The speakers will outline how this can be done but explain why it is crucial to limit global warming by a rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and reaching net zero CO2 emissions by 2050.
Prestigious webinar series
This will be the fourth webinar in our series which brings together researchers who are outstanding in their fields to stimulate new, creative and critical thinking, open up new perspectives across cultures, deepen collaboration and share fresh insights.
The speakers at the upcoming webinar are Professor Tianjun Zhou from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Professor Glenn McGregor from the Department of Geography at Durham University.
Find out more
- The webinar “Climate change, extreme events and health risks” will take place on Friday 15 October at 8am (UK) / 3pm (Beijing) via Zoom. You can book here
- Watch this short video about our partnership with the Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Watch previous webinars in the series
- Find out more about our speakers – Professor Tianjun Zhou and Professor Glenn McGregor
- Interested in COP26? Take a look at our COP26 playlist on YouTube