Call to Action on Climate Change and Health

The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and other health professionals argue that climate change is the greatest health threat of the 21st century, citing immediate impacts in Canada such as wildfires, heat-related deaths, and food insecurity in the Arctic. They urge federal parties to adopt targets to keep warming below 1.5°C, phase out coal by 2030, and reduce emissions from the oil, gas, and transport sectors, noting that such policies would yield significant health co-benefits and reduce healthcare costs.

• Climate change is causing diverse physical and mental health issues in Canada, including cardiorespiratory problems from wildfire smoke, trauma and PTSD from evacuations, and food insecurity for Indigenous populations in the Canadian Arctic where temperatures have risen by up to 3°C since the 1950s.
• Extreme weather events in 2018 demonstrated the immediate risks to Canadians, with Toronto seeing 21 days over 30°C, Quebec recording over 90 heat-related deaths, and British Columbia declaring a provincial state of emergency due to nearly 600 wildfires.
• The economic cost of natural disasters in Canada has risen significantly, with annual insurance claims growing from $400 million in previous decades to approximately $1 billion today, and government disaster funding increasing from $100 million per year two decades ago to $2 billion in 2013-14.
• Climate mitigation policies offer substantial health and economic co-benefits; for example, reducing fossil fuel combustion could address 7,100 premature deaths and $53.5 billion in annual health-related costs in Canada.
• The document advocates for a target-based, cross-party plan similar to the United Kingdom's Climate Change Act, which helped the UK reduce emissions by 41% between 1990 and 2016, contrasting this with Canada's emissions increase from 603 MT to 704 MT in the same period.
• The authors demand specific federal actions, including phasing out coal-fired power plants by 2030, reducing emissions from the oil and gas sector (which contributed 26% of emissions in 2016), and the transportation sector (which contributed 25% in 2016).

APA

Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (2019). Call to Action on Climate Change and Health. https://cape.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Press-Release-CC-Call-to-Action-Feb-5-updated-March-2019.pdf

Chicago

Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. Call to Action on Climate Change and Health. 2019. https://cape.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Press-Release-CC-Call-to-Action-Feb-5-updated-March-2019.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment |title=Call to Action on Climate Change and Health |date=5 February 2019 |url=https://cape.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Press-Release-CC-Call-to-Action-Feb-5-updated-March-2019.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{canadianassociationofphysiciansfortheenvironment2019call, author = {{Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment}}, title = {{Call to Action on Climate Change and Health}}, publisher = {Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment}, year = {2019}, month = feb, url = {https://cape.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Press-Release-CC-Call-to-Action-Feb-5-updated-March-2019.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }