Climate change: an emerging health issue GUEST EDITORS

The core concern is succinctly stated: climate change endangers health in fundamental ways. Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General, World Health Organization on the occasion of World Health Day 2008. The World Health Organization chose climate change as the theme for last year’s World Health Day in an explicit attempt to attract policy-makers to the compelling evidence about the impacts of climate change on health. The reality of human-induced climate change can no longer be doubted, but the extent of its consequences for health can still be reduced. Consideration of the health impacts of climate change can enable political leaders to act with the required urgency.1 Figure 1 illustrates the many ways in which climate change will affect health.2 There are likely to be some (modest) positive health consequences from climate change (fo