Climate change poses an immediate, grave and escalating threat to the health and security of people around the globe and must be tackled urgently, experts warned.

Climate change poses an immediate, grave and escalating threat to the health and security of people around the globe. [File photo]

In a statement issued at a meeting in London on Monday, they urged tougher action to reduce climate change including upping the EU target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions from 20 per cent by 2020 to 30 per cent from 1990 levels.

Professor Hugh Montgomery, Director of the University College London (UCL) Institute for Human Health and Performance said: "It is not enough for politicians to deal with climate change as some abstract academic concept. The price of complacency will be paid in human lives and suffering, and all will be affected. Tackling climate change can avoid this, while related lifestyle changes independently produce significant health benefits. It is time we saw true leadership from those who would profess to take such a role."

Other signatories include Michael Jay, the chairman of medical charity Merlin, Ian Gilmore, ex-president of the Royal College of Physicians, and Anthony Costello, director of the UCL Institute for Global Health.

"Climate knows no frontiers," added Lord Michael Jay, even in these difficult economic times, "we must not fail to take tough measures ... there is a real need for more commitment and more action at a national, international and industrial level."

The statement outlines how rising temperatures and weather instability will lead to more frequent and extreme weather events, increasing the spread of infectious diseases, destroying habitats and causing water and food shortages. It warns that humanitarian crises "will further burden military resources" and that the human and economic cost "will be enormous." However, it also states that tackling climate change could "significantly cut rates of premature death and disability for hundreds of millions of people around the world."

All the signatories to the statement believe that tough measures on climate change are needed if we are to secure our future wellbeing.

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