Basic needs to be affected by Climate Change: Report

The changing climate is likely to affect the basic needs - such as safe drinking water, sufficient food, secure shelter and good social conditions - of human beings. Reviews of the likely impacts of climate change by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a scientific body tasked to evaluate the risk of climate change caused by human activity, has recently suggested that a warming climate is likely to bring some localised benefits; such as decreased winter deaths in temperate climates and increases in food production in some, particularly high latitude regions.
The most endemic malarious regions will be the central and eastern Indian regions of the country covering Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal and Assam in the current climate conditions due to influence of climate change on vector production and malaria transmission. In 2050s, it is projected that malaria is likely to persist in Orissa, West Bengal and southern region of India due to climate change, as per the review reports prepared by the IPCC.
More than half of the world's population now lives within 60km of the sea. Changes in climate are likely to lengthen the transmission seasons of important vector-borne diseases, and to alter their geographic range, potentially bringing them to regions which lack either population immunity or a strong public health infrastructure.
Public health services and high living standards would protect some populations from specific impact. Climate change would cause malaria to become prone in India in the coming years. Overall, however, the health effects of a rapidly changing climate are likely to be overwhelmingly negative, particularly in the poorest communities, which have contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions.
As per the review reports of the IPCC, climate change is going to increase frequencies of heat waves, more variable precipitation patterns are likely to compromise the supply of freshwater by increasing risks of water-borne disease. Rising temperatures is likely to decrease the production of staple foods in many of the poorest regions by increasing risks of malnutrition. Rising sea levels will increase the risk of coastal flooding and may necessitate population displacement.
The effects of the climate change that has occurred since the mid-1970s may have caused over 150,000 deaths in 2000 and these impacts are likely to increase in the future, revealed the report. Psycho-social illnesses are a part of the various health issues associated with climate change. It has been anticipated that severe flooding may become more frequent due to global warming in the coming years.