Kyriakides: “From climate change 250,000 more deaths per year, on with the Green Deal”

Brussels – Crazy weather and health. A problem within a problem. A threat within a threat. The repercussions of the former on the latter are no small matter, and, in this, the Green Deal is the high road. Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides takes stock of the situation and warns that if we backtrack on the sustainability agenda, we cannot imagine moving forward. “Between 2030 and 2050, climate change will cause 250 thousand more deaths worldwide per year,” she said while speaking at the Green Agenda Summit in Cyprus, quoting World Health Organization data (WHO). From here, the warning about the vicious global warming-human fallout cycle has already started. This trend is due to malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress, but there is also more.

“Air pollution causes respiratory diseases such as asthma and bronchitis, as well as cardiovascular problems,” Kyriakides continued. Italy knows well the phenomenon of heart disease as it is among the most affected EU states. In addition, she adds, “rising temperatures and changing environmental and climatic conditions, such as precipitation patterns, mean more waterborne and foodborne pathogens and diseases.” But more broadly, she explains, “climate change affects the availability and quality of food and water, which can lead to serious health problems.”

Not to mention urban situations that have become increasingly dangerous. “One in eight Europeans live in areas potentially prone to river flooding,” Kyriakides further denounces. It means that intensifying exceptional and extreme weather conditions, such as torrential rains increasingly, expose men and women of Europe to risk. 

Knowing that “we have a collective duty to protect people’s health from the climate threat,” as the European Commission and as the EU, “we have already implemented numerous actions through the European Green Deal,” Kyriakides stressed defending the ‘green’ agenda, especially in times of elections and parties who intend to call it into question. The Green Deal remains “the compass that guides our work in this area,” she claims. “But we must continue,” she cautions.