World at risk of pandemics that could kill millions, panel warns
‘We are losing the race’ on climate catastrophe, UN warns
LONDON: The world is facing a mounting threat of disease pandemics that could kill millions and wreak havoc on the global economy, a international expert panel has warned, and governments should work to prepare for and mitigate that risk. The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), co-convened by the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), warned that epidemic-prone viral diseases like Ebola, flu and SARS are increasingly tough to manage in a world dominated by lengthy conflicts, fragile states and forced migration.
“The threat of a pandemic spreading around the globe is a real one,” the group said in a report released yesterday. “A quick-moving pathogen has the potential to kill tens of millions of people, disrupt economies and destabilize national security.” While some governments and international agencies have made efforts to be vigilant and prepare for major disease outbreaks since the devastating 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, those efforts are “grossly insufficient”, the report said.
Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former WHO head who co-chaired the board, added that current approaches to disease and health emergencies are “characterized by a cycle of panic and neglect.” The report cited the 1918 “Spanish flu” pandemic, which killed an estimated 50 million people. With vast numbers of people crossing the world on planes every day, an equivalent air-borne outbreak now could spread globally in less than 36 hours and kill an estimated 50 million to 80 million people, wiping out nearly 5% of the global economy, it said.
In the case of a pandemic, many national health systems - particularly in poor countries - would collapse. “Poverty and fragility exacerbate outbreaks of infectious disease and help create the conditions for pandemics to take hold,” said Axel van Trotsenburg, acting chief executive of the World Bank and a member of the panel.
Calling on governments to “heed the lessons these outbreaks are teaching us” and to “fix the roof before the rain comes”, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, said they should invest in strengthening health systems, boost funds for research into new technologies, improve coordination and rapid communication systems, and monitor progress continually. The WHO also warned earlier this year that another pandemic of flu - which is caused by airborne viruses - is inevitable, and said the world should prepare for it.
Climate catastrophe Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world was “losing the race” to avert climate disaster, but that greenhouse gas reduction targets were not out of reach yet. He was speaking during an interview with the Covering Climate Now coalition of media, which includes AFP, days before a UN youth climate summit that will be followed by a meeting with world leaders, where he will urge countries to raise their commitments set under the Paris agreement.
The landmark accord saw countries pledge to limit the long-term rise in the average temperature of the Earth to two degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels, and if possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius. “What I want is to have the whole of society putting pressure on governments to make governments understand they need to run faster, because we are losing the race,” he said, adding: “What the science tells us today is that these targets are still reachable.”
Guterres said that inaction by some key countries, including the US, could be at least partly offset by action at the sub-national level, for example in the carbon neutral pledges made by the states of California and New York. “I think one of the best things of the US society is the fact that it is a federal country... that decisions are decentralized, so I will be always very strongly in favor of keeping decisions on climate change as decentralized as possible,” he said. He noted that major cities, regions and businesses were taking over, and that banks and investment funds were pulling out of the coal and fossil fuel sectors.
Guterres also cited the example of the European Union, where only three countries now oppose the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, and said that he felt a “new wind” in the push for renewable energy, especially with the growth of solar in India and China. Failure to meet the goals laid out under the Paris agreement could lead to the crossing of so-called “tipping points” such as the thawing of the Earth’s permafrost that further accelerate warming, creating a situation where extreme weather events become the norm.
Guterres said he was heartened by growing societal awareness, which meant that hope was not yet lost, “but that requires profound changes in the way we produce food, in the way we power our economies, in the way we organize our cities, in the way we produce energy.” “I feel that more and more people, companies, cities, and governments, are understanding that needs to be done,” he said.