
Argentinian meteorologist Celeste Saulo to lead U.N. weather agency
Saulo, who has led Argentina's National Meteorological Service since 2014, is the first woman elected as WMO's chief.
Melting glaciers. Rising sea levels. Wildfires. Food shortages. Mass coral reef deaths and widespread species extinctions. Global pandemics. Every other issue is secondary. In a world of climate change, direct impacts on humanity already are evident on environments where we live and work and on the health and well-being of many populations.
Saulo, who has led Argentina's National Meteorological Service since 2014, is the first woman elected as WMO's chief.
The 76th World Health Assembly ended after moving to strengthen its budget and broaden access to health care.
About 69% of all the plastics produced, mainly through fossil fuel burning, are used just once or twice before they are thrown away. About 22% is mismanaged. Just 9% is recycled.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought into sharp focus many of the world's glaring inequalities in health care and access to products such as vaccines, therapeutics and tests.
Heavy rains and warmer temperatures make it easier for the bacteria that causes cholera to spread, posing a major setback for global efforts to eradicate the disease.
The annual average near-surface global temperature between 2023 and 2027 will likely be more than 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels for at least one year.
The estimated annual social and environmental costs of plastic pollution range from US$300 billion to $US1.5 trillion.
More than 4.5 million pregnant women and babies die each year during pregnancy, childbirth or during the first few weeks of life – about one death globally every seven seconds.
Though the emergency phase is over, the World Health Organization's pandemic designation still holds.
The onset of a possible El Niño climate event later this year combined with rising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could push global temperatures to a new warming record.
Low rainfall and high evaporation rates 'would not have led to drought at all in a 1.2° C. cooler world,' scientists concluded.
Droughts, floods and heatwaves drove food insecurity and mass migration as communities on every continent were hit by massive costs, the World Meteorological Organization said.
Public perception of the importance of vaccines for children fell during the pandemic in 52 of 55 countries studied.
As the World Health Organization celebrated its 75th anniversary – commemorating World Health Day and the day its constitution took effect, recognizing health as a human right – the COVID-19 pandemic's lessons were inescapable.
The Middle East and North African region is among the most vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change but the public health impacts are relatively unknown, according to a new study published in The Lancet Planetary Health.
The European Court of Human Rights heard two climate cases brought by citizens against Swiss and French authorities complaining they must do more to reduce carbon emissions.