Workers face 'epidemic of heat-related injuries' due to climate change
Arthur Neslen
Thursday 28 April 2016 06.19 EDT Last
SNIPPET:Workers in fields and factories face an epidemic of heat-related injuries that will devastate their health, income and productivity as climate change takes hold, a major UN report has warned.
Productivity losses alone could rise above $2tn by 2030, as outdoor employees in many regions slow their pace, take longer breaks and shift their work to cooler dusk and dawn hours.
The effects of heat stress brought on by a warming world are already evident among the 4 billion people who live in the tropics and subtropics, says the report, Climate Change and Labour, which was jointly produced by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), UN Development Programme and the World Health Organisation.
In west Africa, the number of very hot days each year has already doubled since the 1960s, with an increase of around 10 sultry days each decade.
Matthew McKinnon, the manager of the UN’s climate vulnerable support forum, told the Guardian that increased incidence of heat stroke was only the most dramatic evidence of the problem he encountered on a recent trip to Ghana.
He said: “Teachers were complaining that it was too hot to teach children in schoolrooms which had no air conditioning. The children were also exhausted. We had truck drivers who were complaining that the rates of tyre bursts was increasing a lot because of the heat. Farmers too were worried that they had to spend too much time in open fields in the hot season.”
Around 2% of daylight hours are predicted to be shaved off the working day in west Africa, south Asia, and 10 regions in Asia, Africa and Latin America by 2030, potentially creating an epidemic of heat-related injuries.
“If temperatures climb beyond 2C, it would really be a problem on that scale in the tropics and sub-tropics,” McKinnon said.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/28/workers-epidemic-heat-related-injuries-climate-change-un-reportAnd hold Exxon and all the other oil and gas corporations RESPONSIBLE for the Climate Damage THEY CAUSED with Penalties and Fines to be used to finance the TRANSITION to 100% RENEWABLE ENERGY.