The Severe Impact of Climate Change on Developing Countries

global temperature has increased from 13.7 to 14.3 degrees Celsius. The 1990s were, in many respects, the warmest years of the 20th century. Most of the world’s glaciers have receded over the last few decades. The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere—the chief cause of the greenhouse effect—has risen from 280 parts per million (ppm) to 360 ppm since the start of the Industrial Revolution, through the burning of fossil fuels. The buildup of greenhouse gases is the most likely cause of the growing incidence of extreme weather conditions such as hurricanes, floods, and droughts.1 An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), has been issuing increasingly sobering reports on disruption to the global climate since May 1990. In the most recent report “Climate Change 2001—Impacts, Adaption, and Vulnerability,” published in July 2001,2 a panel of high-ranking scientists and social scientists grappled with the question of the influence of climate change on the living conditions of humanity. In the ninth chapter of this comprehensive, 1,000-page work, epidemiologists from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and other institutions outlined the influence of global warming on human health in various parts of the world. Climate change is merely one of many factors influencing the genesis of diseases, and it is often difficult for epidemiologists to separate out the socioeconomic and demographic influences. It is also difficult to predict future developments in