Climate change and health: a 2-week course for medical students to inspire change

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown not only how life on our planet is closely connected, enabling a zoonotic disease to spread rapidly across human societies worldwide, but also how public health concerns can make societies take unprecedented, fast, and decisive action. Climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity,1 with each fraction of a degree of warming having additional costs for health and global development. Although a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in line with current global ambitions will lessen these adverse consequences, this will require a large-scale collective response across all sectors.