ABSTRACT
Climate change presents signifi cant challenges to the ability of populations to maintain health and deliver services to the sick. The impacts are particularly relevant to education for health professionals as the adverse effects are likely to have signifi cant effects on the poor; energy poverty will increase and food security will be compromised, thus increasing inequalities in health (Haines et al. 2006; McMichael et al. 2006). The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that the effects of climate change that have occurred since the mid-1970s may have caused over 150,000 deaths in the year 2000 and concludes that these impacts are likely to increase in the future. The impacts of climate change on human health will be unevenly distributed around the world, with developing countries and densely populated coastal areas being particularly vulnerable. However a warming climate may bring some benefi ts to localized areas; for example a decrease in winter deaths and greater food production at high latitude regions, though this may be compromised by population migration and the associated problems this would bring (see WHO).
