COVID-19 has upended daily life like nothing else this century. It has shuttered economies, plunged millions into economic uncertainty, and killed 4.5 million and counting since the start of last year. For these reasons and many more, the pandemic has dominated any discussion around public health. But medical experts are warning of an even worse threat.

More than 230 medical journals came together on Sunday to name climate change as the “greatest threat to global public health,” calling on world leaders to take immediate action to limit global warming and the destruction of the natural world. Climate-related extreme weather is already exacting a heavy toll on people worldwide, the editorial said, and things will only get worse if global temperatures climb 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above levels in the early 19th century. The world has already warmed 1.1 degrees C (2 degrees F).

“No temperature rise is ‘safe,’” the authors warned, saying that a failure to act now would have cataclysmic, irreversible consequences for human health. “Despite the world’s necessary preoccupation with COVID-19, we cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions.”

The report follows a summer of climate-related disasters around the world, from British Columbia’s deadly heat dome to torrential deluges in China. In the U.S. alone, extreme weather related to climate change has claimed at least 388 lives and affected nearly one in three people. On the West Coast, devastating wildfires have spread smoke as far away as Europe, potentially exacerbating the threat of COVID-19.

The editorial urged leaders at upcoming climate- and biodiversity-related conferences to take action to protect world health. Rich countries in particular must do more to help developing nations build just and sustainable infrastructure, the authors said — through grants, rather than loans, that are partially geared toward improving the resiliency of their health care systems to climate change.

Read the full article about the threat of climate change by Joseph Winters at Grist.