Global health. The current scenario and future perspectives

109 exists; the global ecological system comprising all living organisms and their relationships. Climate change: Variation in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., through Statistical tests) by changes in the mean or variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to internal natural processes or external forcings, such as modulations of solar cycles, volcanic eruptions or persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or land use. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in its Article 1, defines the phenomenon as “a change of climate that is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity and alters the composition of the global atmosphere and that is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods”. The UNFCCC, therefore, distinguishes between climate change attributable to human activities that alter atmospheric composition and climate variability attributable to natural causes (IPCC, 2018b). Natural capital: An extension of the traditional economic concept of “capital”, coined to represent the natural resources that economists, governments and companies tend to exclude from their balance sheets. It can be divided into non-renewable resources (e.g., fossil fuels), renewable resources (e.g., fish) and services (e.g., pollination). Ecosystem: A dynamic complex of plant, animal and microorganism communities and their non-living environment that interact as a functional unit (Article 2 of the Convention on Biological Diversity). Resilience: The capacity of a system to cope with change and continue to develop or return to its original state (Holling, 1973). Ecosystem services: The benefits that people receive from ecosystems (WHO, 2005). Socio-ecological systems: Linked systems of people and nature. The term emphasizes that humans must be seen as part, not apart, from nature and that the separation between social and ecological systems is artificial and arbitrary. References Acheson, D. (1988). Public health in England. The report of the Committee of Inquiry into the future development of the public health function. HMSO, London. Aguayo, R., León-Muñoz, J., Garreaud, R. and Montecinos, A. (2021). Hydrological droughts in the southern Andes (40-45°S) from an ensemble experiment using CMIP5 and CMIP6 models. Scientific Reports , 11(1), 1-16. Alkemade, R., Van Oorschot, M., Miles, L., Nellemann, C., Bakkenes, M. and Ten Brink, B. (2009). GLOBIO3: A framework to investigate options for