CLIMATE change will be responsible for an estimated quarter of a million deaths a year, a conference has heard.

Saskia Heijnen, of Wellcome Trust, told the Global Health event at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPoE), the Our Planet, Our Health programme had predicted that by 2050 the world would have to produce 60 per cent more food if current trends continued and that the number of people living in cities would rise to two thirds of the world’s population.

She also predicted that climate change would cause an estimated 250,000 deaths.

Doctors are considering how our health and the environment are affected by food systems, increased urbanisation, and climate change.

A series of talks from international experts - streamed to 25 international sites - is looking at the major challenges to introducing new vaccines, chronic diseases, mental health and safeguarding health for future years within the context of environmental change.

Keynote speaker, Professor Brian Greenwood, an expert on global malaria control, said: “Considerable progress has been made in the control of malaria during the past two decades as a result of increased political and financial support for malaria control, which has allowed the scale up of interventions that were already available two decades ago.

“However, much more needs to be done.

“Although mortality from malaria worldwide has fallen by over 50 per cent since 2000... over 1000 people still die from malaria each day, mostly young children in Africa.

“However, the news is not all gloomy. A number of novel anti-malarial drugs are being trialled and two new forms of insecticide-treated bed nets have recently been approved. Progress is being made in the development of malaria vaccines and the application of gene drive technologies to vector mosquitoes opens up exciting new approaches to the control of malaria and other mosquito borne diseases.”

College president, Professor Derek Bell, added: “It’s important to learn lessons from international health research, and apply those lessons nationally, where appropriate.

“In particular, I am interested to hear more from our speakers about the impact climate change and the destruction of marine ecosystems have had on human health.”