Global Environmental Health Expert Speaks on Climate Change Globally experienced professor Tord Kjellström share his perspective on climate change at CleanMed Europe on May 30.. It is becoming increasingly accepted that climate change is one of the greatest environmental health challenges that the world faces. Globally, climate change can lead to a number of public health effects, including wider spread of vector-borne diseases, heat wave related mortality peaks, increased air pollution, and lack of drinking water and food. One effect that should be obvious, but whose consequences still are not discussed too often, is the effect of increasing heat on our ability to work and carry out daily activities. Already parts of the world are so hot that work and other physical activities are restricted during parts of the year. This situation will get worse with climate change and it will also affect the health services, as not all health service work places can be air-conditioned. This outlook has yet not caught the attention of decision-makers and the general public, but will be presented thoroughly at CleanMed Europe by professor Tord Kjellström. Tord Kjellström has been a researcher and teacher in environmental and occupational health for more than 35 years working in Sweden, New Zealand, Australia and Switzerland. He worked as an epidemiologist at the WHO in Geneva for 12 years, and as Director of Global and Integrated Environmental Health, he was responsible for the early work of the organization on the health effects of climate change. In recent years he has carried out epidemiological studies of the health impacts of air pollution and climate variations and has participated in the health impact assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In all, Tord Kjellström has published more than 300 reports about public health, mainly the health effects of toxic metals, asbestos, air pollution and climate change. Prof. Kjellström is currently affiliated with the Australian National University and the Swedish National Institute of Public Health where he analyses relationships between public health, globalisation, urbanization and environmental change. In his CleanMed Europe lecture, Tord Kjellström will account for new estimates of the potential health and economic impact that the heat effect on work ability might have. This will be put in relation to climate change, and the findings are dramatic and worrying.