Last week, one of the world’s leading medical journals declared the medical community must act now to limit the health effects of climate change.

In a stark editorial, readers of the New England Journal of Medicine were reminded that hospitals, even air-conditioned and sterilised, are not protected from “the environmental chaos unfolding outside”.

The effects of climate change are “frighteningly broad”, the editorial continued, including risks to medical supply chains, health infrastructure and all aspects of human health.

The special issue represents an important new focus for the journal and for the medical community: protecting human health in a changing climate calls for urgent, dramatic climate action.