Climate Facts: Climate change is the biggest health threat facing humanity, says UN

The complexities of climate change and its associated jargon can make it difficult to digest. TheCable’s climate quick facts will help to demystify these climate concepts through easy-to-understand and straight-to-the-point explanations.

Here are some to keep at the tip of your fingers:

• The United Nations says climate change, through air pollution, disease, extreme weather events, forced displacement, pressures on mental health, and increased hunger and poor nutrition, is the single biggest health threat facing humanity.
  
• Areas with weak health infrastructure — mostly in developing countries — will be the least able to cope without assistance to prepare and respond to climate change, says WHO. 
• From 1990 to 2019, Africa received just 3.8 percent of climate-related research funding globally, thereby facing severe data constraints, as well as inequities in funding, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
• A circular economy, based on the principles of reduce, reuse, and recycle, could create around six million new jobs in recycling and waste management, says the UN. 
• According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the ocean has absorbed between 20 percent and 30 percent of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions in recent decades (7.2bn to 10.8bn metric tons per year).