New England Journal of Medicine Commentary: Health Community Must Build on COP28 Climate Momentum

New England Journal of Medicine: Advocating for a Healthy Response to Climate Change — COP28 and the Health Community
Boston, 15 April 2024:- A new ‘perspective’ article published today in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) highlights the crucial role the health community must play in the worldwide response to climate change – both demanding action from policymakers and preparing health systems. 

The article, Advocating for a Healthy Response to Climate Change — COP28 and the Health Community, authored by Jeni Miller, PhD, Executive Director of the Global Climate & Health Alliance, Courtney Howard, MD, Vice-Chair, Global Climate & Health Alliance, University of Calgary Cumming School of Medicine and Emergency Medicine at Stanton Territorial Hospital, and Lujain Alquodmani, MD, President of the World Medical Association and Director of Global Action and Project Portfolio at EAT, discusses the health community’s role in demanding climate action for governments, health professionals’ potential to “bring about dramatic shifts social norms, policy, and markets, with the potential to boost the uptake of sustainable decarbonization and resilience solutions in multiple sectors.”

The article also explores how the health communities must respond to “the health emergency that climate change represents”, describes how health professionals came together ahead of COP28 to demand a global phase out of fossil fuels, and addresses the future role of the health community in climate action. 

“Health care professionals can lead by example within health systems and can make sure that national leaders continue to hear loudly and clearly that health should be at the center of climate-related decision making”, says the commentary.

Read Advocating for a Healthy Response to Climate Change — COP28 and the Health Community – note that free registration to the  New England Journal of Medicine in order to read the article. 

ENDS

Contacts:
For interviews or comments by the authors, please contact Dave Walsh, Communications Advisor, Global Climate and Health Alliance, [email protected], +34 691 826 764

About GCHA
The Global Climate and Health Alliance is a consortium of more than 160 health professional and health civil society organizations and networks from around the world addressing climate change. We are united by a shared vision of an equitable, sustainable future, in which the health impacts of climate change are minimized, and the health co-benefits of climate change mitigation are maximised.

Find out more: https://climateandhealthalliance.org/about/

 

The Health Community at COP28 – Where Do We Go to From Here?

Photo: UNclimatechange | Flickr

Following December’s UN climate negotiations in Dubai,  Global Climate and Health Alliance Executive Director Dr Jeni Miller reflects on the climate summit’s outcomes, and the action needed next to protect people’s health from the climate crisis. 

Last December’s COP28 featured the first ever COP Health Day, which elevated the importance of protecting people’s health through action on climate change and put the issue before heads of state and their national delegations from around the world. Health Day also saw nearly 50 ministers of health coming to COP28 for the first time, and included an Inter Ministerial Dialogue along with representatives from ministries of environment and finance. The COP28 UAE Declaration on Climate and Health, launched during the Inter Ministerial event and signed by 148 countries (to date), called upon signatory governments to recognize that the climate crisis is a health crisis, and that addressing it requires both investing in health systems and working across sectors to protect health.

The Health Community at COP28
More than 1900 health sector representatives converged in Dubai, by far the greatest representation by the health community at a climate summit, and the health community played a role in driving COP28 to deliver an agreement on the need to end the use of fossil fuels.

The work began much earlier – during  2023 health leaders made clear that phasing out fossil fuels is a health imperative. This included sending a letter to the COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber, signed by leaders of organizations representing 46.3 million health professionals calling for commitments at COP28 to phase out fossil fuels. While investing in health systems is crucial to protecting health in the face of a changing climate, health systems won’t be able to protect people’s health if the Earth warms by three degrees Celsius – the level of warming toward which we are currently headed. The health community joined a chorus of leading governments, scientists, businesses, and climate groups, leading to governments committing during COP28, for the first time, to “transition away” from fossil fuels.

The events ahead of and during the summit demonstrated that organized engagement by the health community can make a difference. Seizing the opportunity provided by the COP28 Presidency’s decision to designate a Health Day, WHO and health organizations worked throughout the year to give substance to that symbolic day; health ministries fed into development of the COP28 climate and health declaration; and health organizations pushed for that declaration to be stronger. Health groups developed joint policy positions related to key areas of the negotiations, and supported public letters – not only on fossil fuel phase out, but also clean air and ministries of health in Africa came together to develop a Common Position on Climate Change and Health for the region, ahead of COP. Organized engagement by health professionals and health organizations shaped the content and impact of Health Day, and contributed to shaping a bit of the substance of what was decided in the negotiations.

Outcomes
COP28 took steps in the right direction for health, some of them quite important; and yet at the same time, it did not deliver the level of ambitious, serious, transformational action on climate change that we really need in order to protect health. The agreement reached at COP on fossil fuels came with loopholes by which countries can rationalize continued and expanded use of oil and gas. Meanwhile, a loss and damage fund was established, but with wealthy nations committing less than 0.2% of the estimated $400 billion per year, low income vulnerable countries need to be able to respond to and recover from the climate impacts they are facing.  The agreement on adaptation includes reference to health adaptation, but lacks clear metrics for assessing country progress, and lacks the necessary financial support to keep low income countries from being left behind. So while COP28 delivered some progress, much more needs to be done to achieve the climate action people’s health requires.

The health community can and must play a vital role.

Where do we go from here?
Via the COP process, it will be critical to push governments to build on and strengthen the commitments made at COP28, and GCHA will be working to bring a coordinated health message to that effort. But COP and the UNFCCC are by no means the only place where those of us from the health community can make a difference.

At the next World Health Assembly in May, Ministers of Health will have the opportunity to consider a new WHA resolution on climate change and health. The last resolution on the issue was adopted 14 years ago. Right now, Member States are in the process of developing the details of the proposed resolution to put forward in May.

To deal with climate impacts, each country’s health systems need to train and prepare the health workforce for how climate impacts may affect their patients, and hospitals and clinics need to be made more resilient to protect critical infrastructure from impacts like floods or power outages, and transition to stable and sustainable renewable energy sources. Working for universal health coverage is vital, so that community residents have good baseline health status, and are therefore more resilient and better equipped to deal with changing conditions. Public health systems must also be strengthened, with access to localized timely data in usable form, and the staffing they need, to identify opportunities to prepare their communities, and to develop adaptation plans.

Changes within our health systems are a natural place for health professionals to make a difference. There are real opportunities for health professionals and others in the health community to be champions for these changes, and for the investments needed to make them possible, both nationally and internationally. And health systems, often important anchor institutions in their communities, can be highly influential and lead by example.

So much of climate change, however, is determined outside of the health system, and indeed, so much of people’s health is determined by other sectors. That includes decisions about water and sanitation systems, urban development, transportation systems, energy systems. Policy decisions in other sectors can either result in health improvements, lives saved, illnesses, with implications, in turn, for the nation’s economy; or they can be responsible for significant health harms or lost opportunities for the population’s health. Health is needed at the table across sectors, to ensure that when decisions are made with people’s health in mind, and health expertise informs the outcome.

It might be many months until the next major climate summit, but climate change has not slowed down. In early January, the EU Copernicus Climate report confirmed that 2023 was warmest year on record. According to the World Meteorological Organization, this January was the warmest January on record. February is also set to break records. This year has already delivered storms around the world, and wildfires in Chile, exacerbated by a heatwave, that caused more than 100 deaths.

All the more reason for the health community to build on the momentum we generated during 2023, ramping up our influence, and accelerating transformational action throughout our societies. We have the opportunity to inspire our colleagues, our patients, our communities, and our governments to take steps to protect the health and wellbeing of everyone through ambitious policies and by taking bold stances at an international level. Let’s do this!

Photo: UNclimatechange | Flickr

Health Organisations: COP28 “Signals” Alone From World Leaders Will Not Protect People’s Health

Protect Health -End Fossil Fuels: Skyler Knutzen/Global Climate and Health Alliance.

Dubai, December 13, 2023: As COP28 closes today in Dubai, the health community commended agreements in the outcome text of COP28 that some countries noted as signaling the end of the fossil fuel era. However, health groups denounced the summit’s failure to commit to a full phase out of fossil fuels, a critically urgent step towards protecting people’s health, and criticized the failure to commit to strong targets for adaptation to build resilient systems capable of protecting vulnerable people.

“Signals alone are not enough – only real action to phase out fossil fuels will protect people’s health”, said Jeni Miller, Executive Director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, which represents 160 health professional and health civil society organizations and networks from around the world addressing climate change.

“While recognisable progress was made by COP28, the failure to find consensus on a full and fair phase out of fossil fuels is deeply problematic when people’s health and lives hang in the balance – with the highest price being paid by communities who have contributed least to the problem”, she said.

“This year we saw superstorms, floods, heatwaves, droughts and wildfires, yet with the severe toll climate impacts are already taking on people’s health and health systems, it is disheartening that world leaders still could not align themselves on the obvious and urgent need for fossil fuel phase out”, said Miller. “It is also worrying that developed countries held back from recognising their responsibility to reduce emissions first and fastest, or from making clear and measurable commitments to support the most impacted countries to adapt, with adequate finance to support implementation.”

“Compromise may be a part of international negotiations, but childrens’ developing lungs, brains and bodies will not know what was achieved at COP28, if it does not drive the most rapid of transitions away from fossil fuels, and support their communities to adapt to the impacts that we are already experiencing” said Miller. “Today’s outcomes will not matter if the air remains polluted and there is no food on the table due to drought. Pregnant women whose nearest clinic was destroyed by floods will not celebrate such modest steps towards eliminating the drivers or protecting against the impacts of the climate crisis”.

“As delegates leave Dubai, developed countries must address the needs of the most vulnerable, and lead us towards equitably delivering the end of the fossil fuel era; and this leadership must put any countries hoping to cling to a fossil fuel future on notice that indeed this era is at an end”, concluded Miller.

“Fossil fuels are the leading driver of climate change and its health impacts, and inflict additional health hazards from the moment of extraction to combustion”, said Jess Beagley, Policy Lead at the Global Climate and Health Alliance. “While the COP28 final text clearly signals the impending end of the fossil fuel era, naming the need to end dependence on fossil fuels for the first time in a 30 year process, it leaves gaping and dangerous loopholes such as carbon capture and storage, ‘transitional fuels’ like fossil gas, and nuclear power, and does not clearly commit to a full, fair or funded fossil fuel phase out.

“Meanwhile, current language on adaptation and finance leaves vulnerable people unprotected and risks reinforcing cycles of debt, disease and death. The COP28 final text pays lip service to the human right to health and the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, but falls short of action to guarantee them”, said Beagley.

Signals of the end of the fossil fuel era were nevertheless welcomed, as a pointer in the right direction. Health organizations also noted the events and activities at COP28 that elevated a focus on people’s health for the first time at a COP, including the COP28 Climate and Health Declaration, which received sign on by 142 countries (to date); the first ever official Health Day at COP; and an InterMinisterial meeting on climate and health that brought nearly 50 Ministers of Health and 110 high level health ministerial staff to COP for the first time. With over 1900 delegates from the health sector attending COP this year, the effort to ensure that climate decisions are made with people’s lives and well being at their heart gained momentum.

Further quotes:
“Health is the human face of climate change and it has become clear that fossil fuel phase out is the most important treatment for the health emergency of climate change. The outcome of COP28, while not the transformational text we would have liked to see, does nevertheless indicate a turning point, calling as it does for a tripling of renewable energy capacity, and a transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems”, said Dr. Courtney Howard, Vice Chair, Global Climate and Health Alliance.

“We must now work to organize our communities to counter the power of the fossil fuel industry that opposed more ambitious language and to ensure that the goals outlined in COP28 outcome documents are brought to life as quickly as possible where they matter most – in the real world. I am proud of the role that the health sector has played at COP28 and I look forward to harnessing our momentum, our frustration and our hope at the window that has been opened by this text to power our accelerating movement for healthy people on a healthy planet”, concluded Howard.

“In the wake of COP28 held in Dubai, a pivotal moment arose as health was integrated into its programme. Nevertheless, it stands as yet another global setback, marked by unfulfilled pledges and a lack of protection for our well-being, the future of generations to come, and the health of our planet. An urgent just transition away from fossil fuels is crucial to meet the Paris goals and for the survival of humanity, and nature. Governments must act now and stop the green and health washing”, said Dr. Lujain Al Quodmani, President, World Medical Association.

“Despite COP28 featuring several ‘first-times’, such as Health Day and the Global Stocktake, the disappointment we’re experiencing after the final outcomes of the negotiations at this COP is certainly not a ‘first-time’ feeling for us. This definitely has momentarily made us feel hopeless about the future of our health and the planet, but, not all hope is lost! As future healthcare professionals, we will continue advocating in our capacity to call for an equitable and just fossil fuel phase-out, improve the inclusion of climate change in the medical curriculum, and reach out to grassroots initiatives to increase societal awareness about the health impacts of climate change. However, with each passing second in the climate emergency we are living in, we need the same spirit of commitment from the world leaders, before it is too late”, said Salman Kahn, Liaison Officer for Public Health Issues, International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations, and GCHA Board Member representing IFMSA.

“COP28 resulted in a big step forward for the climate and health agenda and two steps back for the health of people and the planet. On the one hand we witnessed growing commitment from health ministries around the world for health care decarbonization and climate resilience; this is important progress in aligning health care—which is responsible for about 5% of global emissions– with the ambition of the Paris Agreement. On the other hand, the failure of the world’s governments to adequately address fossil fuels – the root of the climate crisis—in these negotiations, keeps us on a warming trajectory that will have catastrophic consequences for our hospitals, our health systems and people’s health, undermining any progress made by the health sector. We need a fossil free future for health”, said  Josh Karliner, Director of Global Partnerships, Health Care Without Harm.

“Climate change is the greatest injustice of our time across generations. The inclusion of a health day at COP28 is a remarkable step forward. However, the active decision by world leaders to exclude a rapid and just fossil fuel phase out from the decision text clearly values profit over the health of marginalized people, notably children and youth, across the globe. Continuing fossil fuel extraction paves the way for augmenting the health threats and infringements of human rights of those most marginalized”, said Amiteshwar Singh, co-founder of the Youth Climate and Health Network, and Giulia Gasparri, co-founder of the Youth Climate and Health Network and project officer at PMNCH.

“We had a great opportunity here to protect human health with strong decisions on phasing out drivers of climate change, setting ambitious, time bound targets, and streamlining means of support for adaptation. Leaving without these will only prolong suffering, loss of lives, and destruction to health care systems. Leaders here dragged their feet and, in so doing, left our climate vulnerable communities behind,” said Charles Batte, Director, Tree Adoption Uganda.

“The presence of the health sector at COP 28 demonstrates the interest in making the link between health and climate change visible; However, we need Latin American nurses to be more active and take action, taking advantage of the credibility and trust we generate in the communities”, said Doriam Camacho, Lead, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments Latin America

“Despite the outcomes of COP28 falling short of what is essential for our planet’s survival and the protection of all life, there has been a silver lining. Health professionals, who are at the forefront of caring for populations affected by climate change around the world connected and worked together at COP. This gathering allowed us to deepen our understanding of the varied and complex challenges being faced worldwide and how these are being tackled at the COP. It’s clear that much more work is needed to place health at the heart of the climate negotiations. Our commitment remains unshaken. We will continue to strive and advocate until the era of fossil fuels is behind us, ensuring a healthier, more sustainable future that we all deserve”, said Dr. Paola Rava, member, Ibero-American Confederation of Family Medicine (WONCA Iberoamericana-CIMF)

“To limit global temperature rise and its impact on peoples‘ health, it is crucial that countries rapidly transition away from and phase out all fossil fuels in a just manner – without relying on false solutions.  Countries of the Global North which profited from fossil fuelled development, including the EU and Germany in particular, need to phase out fossil fuels more rapidly. They also need to provide sufficient financial support to the countries of the Global South for a just and fair phase-out of fossil fuels and for adaptation. What matters for health is not only what happens at COP, but also what happens between COPs. Ambitious action is needed to save lives”, said Sophie Gepp, German Alliance on Climate Change and Health; Centre for Planetary Health Policy, Research Associate

ENDS

Contacts:

Dave Walsh, Communications Advisor, Global Climate and Health Alliance, [email protected], +34 691 826 764

 

About GCHA
The Global Climate and Health Alliance is a consortium of more than 160 health professional and health civil society organizations and networks from around the world addressing climate change. We are united by a shared vision of an equitable, sustainable future, in which the health impacts of climate change are minimized, and the health co-benefits of climate change mitigation are maximised.

Find out more: https://climateandhealthalliance.org/about/

 

 

 

Climate change and an epidemic of mosquito-carried diseases

Climate change and an epidemic of mosquito-carried diseases

PAID AND PRESENTED BY FORECASTING HEALTHY FUTURES
PART OF THE CLIMATE AND US SERIES

As climate change threatens more extreme weather, communities are at increased risk of disaster.

The impacts of the climate crisis, from devastating wildfires across Canada, Greece and Hawaii, to flooding and landslides in India and Libya, are clear to see. But there are also unseen effects of climate change that are increasingly posing risks to our health.

Rising global temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and other extreme weather conditions bring to the fore climate-related health concerns that demand new solutions. The threats of vector-borne diseases, which are transmitted to humans by other organisms like mosquitoes or ticks, are being exacerbated by climate change.

For example, Brazil recorded 2.3 million dengue cases and almost 1,000 dengue deaths in 2022, the largest dengue outbreak on record. While there is initial development of a vaccine for those who have already been infected, there are currently no drugs available to prevent dengue infections, which happen when a mosquito bites a person. Similarly, there are no approved therapeutics for dengue. Mosquito control through fogging streets and homes with insecticides, using mosquito traps, repellents, nets and introducing predators which eat their larvae, for example, has been the main tool to limit the spread of dengue to date.

However, with the climate-driven expansion of the mosquito Ae. aegypti’s range, emerging resistance to insecticides, and growing urban populations, new tools are needed to control dengue, and other vector-borne diseases like malaria, Zika virus, Yellow Fever and Chagas disease.

Vector-borne disease will be impacted or affected by the climate, and we have the data that shows in dengue, for example, it’s affected by temperature, the rainfall and the wind speed

 

Imran Bambudi

The spread of dengue fever and malaria is climate-dependent. “Climate change altered the geographical distribution of these diseases because as temperatures rise, areas that previously weren’t suitable for transmission now are,” says Marcia Caldas de Castro, professor of demography and chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at Harvard University.

Mosquitoes need warm, humid habitats and areas with still water in which to reproduce. So, as areas become warmer and rainfall increases, leading to flooding and puddles, or droughts dry up river beds, creating standing water, there will be new parts of the world which will be suitable for mosquitoes to spread into. “We need to focus on mitigation strategies,” adds de Castro.

Climate change, coupled with changing human behaviours–like increasing urban populations and dense housing, are creating a perfect storm for disease to spread, says de Castro. “We have cities growing in ways that are far from ideal. They’re growing faster than urban planning,”, she says. “Urban landscapes are ideal for the spread of diseases. The sources of the problem [in cities] are the areas where the vulnerable population are, where you don’t have waste collection, where you don’t have access to clean water. So, to me, the provision of infrastructure would remove those breeding grounds, and be the simplest step to stopping any type of epidemic.”

To respond to the rising threat of vector-borne diseases exacerbated by the impacts of climate change, new technologies are being developed to respond to the challenge. Artificial intelligence (AI) could be a solution used to detect and prevent vector-borne epidemics. AI was used to detect the first signs of Covid-19, and could be used to monitor, predict and prevent the spread of diseases like dengue fever and malaria.

“Vector-borne disease will be impacted or affected by the climate, and we have the data that shows in dengue, for example, it’s affected by temperature, the rainfall and the wind speed,” says Imran Bambudi, the director of disease prevention and control in the Indonesian Ministry of Health.

Bambudi is using artificial intelligence to predict outbreaks of dengue fever in Jakarta, using existing analyses of the region’s weather changes. “We’ve found that mosquitoes will bite a human every five days if the temperature is below 20C. But, the number will increase by three times if the temperature goes up to 30C,” Bambudi says. “AI can help us to analyse this data and these factors, to predict whether the region will experience more malaria and dengue fever outbreaks.”

Case fatality rates are currently lower in 2023 than they were in 2022, which Bambudi says is a positive step. “The number of cases in Indonesia is still high, but the fatality rate being lower means that the awareness we are raising and the information we’re able to give based on these predictions is helping.”

 

An increase in climatic suitability for vector-borne diseases will see the epidemic belt expand towards temperate areas, and further around the world. The population at risk of these diseases will increase by 4.7 billion by 2070, relative to 1970–99, particularly in lowlands and urban areas.

“In order to respond in real-time to the impact of climate change, predictions are best made month-to-month rather than years in advance. “It enables us to give more accurate information to the community and our health facilities,” Bambudi says. “Eventually we’d like to link AI data and prediction to social media, so people can get alerts for outbreaks and take necessary steps like checking their water containers for mosquito breeding. These types of simple precautionary campaigns could be what makes or breaks us when it comes to an outbreak. We need to be diligent, and we need to do it together.”

In Nigeria, for example, identification could be difficult because malaria or dengue could be misdiagnosed as other conditions, says Wellington Oyibo, a professor and consultant medical parasitologist from the University of Lagos in Nigeria. “I think mapping is required, and then we know that people who have the disease, it doesn’t matter the number, are treated accordingly.”

Surveillance of infection rates and progression could be a solution, Oyibo believes, but it requires investment. Biobanks, in which thousands of samples of biological data and health information are stored, are a way forward, Oyibo says. “By collecting samples, analysing and sequencing them with biobanks, we’d be able to trace the progress and come up with a solution to any adaptation of the disease,” he explains. “This would allow for, say, vaccines to be made and altered as the changes occur.”

The organisms and diseases we’re dealing with are subject to change, and that change could be rapid

 

Wellington Oyibo

Providing enough evidence and tracing to track the changes occurring in the diseases is forcing the research community to assess how many patients have presented with dengue and the level to which it has become a public health concern, according to Oyibo.

While solutions are a high priority, the need to adapt to climate change impacts is also of utmost importance. “The organisms and diseases we’re dealing with are subject to change, and that change could be rapid. So awareness is fundamental in order to drive progress in understanding the issue and in succession, providing a strategic solution. That’s the key to putting a stop to this.”

That vector-borne diseases will continue to spread and change in time with the changes to the climate means experts like Oyibo, Bambudi and de Castro face a continuously moving target. But, mapping, AI, biobanks and new advances in treatments and prevention like Wolbachia offer some tools with which the healthcare sector can keep pace.

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The hidden footprint of hospitals

The hidden footprint of hospitals

PRESENTED BY FORECASTING HEALTHY FUTURES
AS PART OF THE CLIMATE AND US SERIES

The following article is part of the Climate and Us series, produced by the BBC StoryWorks Commercial Productions in partnership with GCHA. 

 

Climate change is the largest risk to human health, according to the WHO – but the health services that care for us also contribute to climate change. Can health services reduce their environmental and health impact?

 

In 2020, the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) launched the Greener NHS programme, in a bid to become the first health service in the world to reach “carbon net zero”. Hospitals and trusts across the UK are committing to making their care more sustainable in new and innovative ways, and other countries are following their lead.

The NHS defines net zero as nullifying the full scope of emissions the health service is responsible for. These include Scope 1, or direct emissions, and Scopes 2 and 3, or indirect emissions which are created by, for example, transporting goods or generating energy. The health service is now expanding its definition to include additional emissions which result from things that fall outside of these scopes – like the emissions that come from patients travelling to hospitals.

There is good reason for the NHS to make a net zero commitment – the service accounts for 5.4% of the UK’s total carbon footprint. Transport makes up a significant portion of the NHS’s emissions – with nearly 3.5% (or 9.5 billion miles annually) of all road travel in England related to patients, visitors, staff and suppliers to the NHS.

“The NHS was founded on the idea that the climate was stable, and now it isn’t, so we need to make some changes,” says Nick Watts, the NHS’s chief sustainability officer, adding that the aim is not only to reduce the impact of the service but also to improve patient care.

In Hull, sheep are used to graze the land surrounding the solar panels which power Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

Through the energy used to power hospitals, fuel ambulances, rapid response units, the medicines purchased, the medical devices used and all the equipment, personal protective equipment (PPE) and instruments required to carry out the work, the NHS accounts for roughly the same level of emissions made by a country the size of Croatia.

There are a range of changes being made. Anaesthetic gases, for example, are used daily in surgeries, and the most common is desflurane – but it’s also one of the most environmentally harmful. For example, using a single bottle containing 240ml of desflurane has the same climate effect as burning 440kg of coal, producing 886kg of carbon dioxide. So, practitioners at the University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust started using alternative gases, resulting in the use of desflurane plummeting from about 20% to just below 2%.

The NHS was founded on the idea that the climate was stable, and now it isn’t — Nick Watts

At Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Marc Beaumont, head of sustainability, explains how they will try to meet their ambitious target of being net zero by 2030 – using solar panels to generate power off grid, reducing anaesthetic gas use, increasing the fleet of zero emission vehicles, and working on zero waste to landfill.

In just 12 months, the 11,000 solar panels that span over two local fields have generated over 4.5 million kW hours of energy, which is enough to power roughly 400 homes. They’ve picked up some unusual but popular helping hands to help maintain the solar panel fields too – sheep help to keep the field closely mown.

Nearly 3.5% (or 9.5 billion miles annually) of all road travel in England is related to patients, visitors, staff and suppliers to the NHS.

A team at University Hospitals Birmingham, headed by consultant surgeon and senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham Aneel Bhangu, attempted the world’s first net zero carbon operation in Solihull Hospital in May 2022. The aim was to reduce or offset Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and those of the patients, while also improving the quality of care.

By using reusable gowns and masks, giving anaesthetic through veins rather than using gases, minimising electricity use, including heating and lighting, recycling of single-use equipment used in surgery, using individually packed equipment, and only opening items as they were required as well as consultant surgeons jogging and cycling to the hospital, the team estimated that the reduction in carbon output for the operation was reduced by almost 80% – the equivalent to a diesel car travelling around 5,500 miles. The remaining output was offset through a variety of projects, including the planting of trees on the grounds of Solihull Hospital.

Bhangu says the operation proved that it is possible to reduce emissions in healthcare while maintaining the same high standards of care, and is optimistic that care can be improved in future using these methods.

The World Health Organization (WHO) makes no recommendations at present on reusable drapes and gowns, because there’s no evidence to support that they reduce emissions, according to Bhangu. But the team are working with health professionals around the world to learn how it’ll affect NHS practices.

“We’ve established research networks funded by the National Institute of Health Research UK in India, Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Benin and Mexico,” Bhangu says. “In the NHS, we’ve ended up in this disposable environment, whereas in the Global South, there’s a lot more reuse of equipment and far less plastic packaging. So there are some bilateral lessons to learn around the world.”

Many other countries are also implementing decarbonisation strategies. “We need change in the health curricula for the health professionals and systems to become resilient,” says Milena Sergeeva, the Liaison Officer for Latin America and the Caribbean for the Global Climate and Health Alliance.

Sergeeva sees a lot of overlapping issues across the regions she works with in the Global South. “There are huge levels of inequity, political instability and economic crises in these regions,” she says. “Pair this with the impacts of climate change events, they can very quickly become devastated. [If] developing countries like these see climate impacts and prepare for them, [it] enables them to become resilient, their economics to become stronger and health to improve,” says Sergeeva.

For example, Argentina was the first government worldwide to include reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the health care sector in its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), Colombia partnered with the Pan American Health Organization to report on the health benefits of climate action, and Perú has set its target to meet the WHO’s Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate and Health to be net zero target by 2050.

Bhangu believes this is just the beginning of the NHS’s journey in more sustainable healthcare. “A lot of people focus on carbon reduction, but I focus on the environment,” he says. “It’s also about the plastic waste that goes into the ground and the seas, the drugs that flow out into the water supply. It’s about more than just carbon, we must remember that.”

Anu Mitra is a consultant in emergency medicine and part of the multidisciplinary team leading a project to reduce the need for cannulation at Charing Cross Hospital, London. Cannulation – the small plastic instrument inserted into the back of a patient’s hand to receive intravenous elements such as medication or for taking blood – is one of the most common interventions made in the emergency department. But more than 1.4% of the NHS’s emissions from their supply chain come from single-use plastics like these.

It’s about more than just carbon, we must remember that — Anu Mitra

“To kick off the project, we did an initial audit of our patients and found that 75% of them had had a cannula inserted,” Mitra says. “But when we looked into it further, we found that 44% of cannulas we inserted were actually never used for anything more than drawing blood –- which we can do without one. We see on average 170 patients a day, meaning roughly 60 of them had a cannula inserted that was disposed of but never used.”

Over the first 12 months of the project, results saw a reduction in associated carbon of around 19,000 kg CO2e with a cost saving of around £95,000 just through implementing 40 fewer cannulations a day, because those cannula were not required.

“This project was important to get right because, once a cannula is used, it has to be incinerated [because this is the standard way to dispose of contaminated medical waste],” Mitra explains. “We worked out that the overall emissions for a single cannula use equated to 1.1kg, which is colossal considering they only weigh 66g.”

These might sound like small savings, but they add up, says Mitra.

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How Gen Z are taking on eco-anxiety

How Gen Z are taking on eco-anxietY

Feature presented by the Global Climate and Health Alliance.

Concerns for the future of the planet are rising among the younger generations. Now it’s impacting their mental health. Across the world, Generation Z are confronted with the long-term prospect of climate change – and it can have an impact on their mental health. A survey of 10,000 people aged 16-25 from 10 different countries revealed that 45% feel climate change “negatively impacted their day-to-day life”

Eco-anxiety, or anxiety caused by concerns for the climate, can show in similar ways to other forms of anxiety or distress. From behavioural issues, stomach aches and headaches, to feeling out of control or in danger, eco-anxiety can have a lasting effect on the wellbeing of young people. But some people experiencing environment-related distress might not realise the impact that climate change is having on their lives.

“I speak with colleagues from other parts of the world, and for them the term eco-anxiety is really clear. But it’s slightly twisted in my country, because a lot of patients that I work with are not educated [about climate change], let alone understand the mental effects of climate change,” says Poorva Patil, a psychiatrist in training and founding committee member of the Youth Climate and Health Network (YCHN) from Maharashtra state in western India. “A lot of my patients are already facing anxiety and depression, but they do not connect it to the climate.”

Farmers in this region, and elsewhere in India and other climate-threatened countries, face devastation from failing crops as droughts, floods and extreme weather becomes more common. “These problems are already showing up in different ways in different demographics who don’t realise that this is eco-anxiety,” she says.

 

From left to right: Shelot Masithi, Georgia Welford-Tuitt, Eyal Weintraub, Leslie Davenport

 

 

 

Amit Singh, another member of the YCHN, adds that communities around the world have been coping with the impact of climate change for a lot longer than people in countries like the UK, where he lives. “I think communities such as in India, Latin America and in Africa have been aware of climate change on a more personal level for a much longer time,” he says. “They have experienced it, understand it and realise the depth of how bad it really is.” For many people, he says, not feeling optimistic about the future of the environment is justified.

Leslie Davenport, a climate psychology educator and author, researches how climate change impacts our emotional wellbeing and says that feeling concerned about the climate is valid. “Feeling this anxiety around climate change is an indication that you’re caring, you’re paying attention, and you’re empathetic,” she says. “We feel these emotions for a reason, so if you’re scared, it’s because there are threats and risks. If you’re angry, it’s because injustices are happening.”

Davenport has written books for children, and aims to provide them with the tools they need to navigate a changing world with emotional resilience and knowledge. “We need to make it so when we talk about climate science, there is space for kids to also talk about their feelings and be given these emotional resiliency tools to deal with them,” she says.

Feeling this anxiety around climate change is an indication that you’re caring, you’re paying attention, and you’re empathetic — Leslie Davenport

With this in mind, organisations like the YCHN and Climate Mental Health Network are engaging with young environmentalists around the world to discuss the mental impact of climate change. Abhay Singh Sachal is a Canadian member of the Network and the founder of Break the Divide, a non-profit which aims to connect young people to discuss issues within their communities to do with climate change and mental health.

“Among the youth, there’s this deep sense of burnout, from taking climate action in a physical sense to the emotional and mental burnout that comes from viewing all the world’s issues through a climate lens and feeling guilty for not doing enough,” says Sachal.

His eco-anxiety can manifest as homesickness. “It’s like a sense of nostalgia for a place I once knew and am watching be destroyed. That feeling often happens to me when the wildfires in Canada are rampant every summer. This sense of guilt and also hypocrisy that I am contributing to the system. It’s a lot to process,” adding that he believes bridging the gaps between communities through education and awareness is essential in tackling climate change and the anxieties that come with it.

Georgia Welford-Tuitt, a Master of Public Health graduate and advisor on the Climate and Mental Health Network Gen Z panel adds that everyone can be engaged in climate action, regardless of their background. “you [don’t] need to have a master’s degree or to have studied environmental science to be active in this. No matter your skill, you are needed in the field,” she says. “Every movement needs an accountant, a writer, and someone who can take a powerful photograph. I think there’s a role for all of us.”

Welford-Tuitt, who lives in Paris, says she has had to reframe her thinking to adapt to eco-anxiety. “I stopped looking at the bigger picture and started thinking small and locally, which helped my eco-anxiety. Now I can manage my expectations and the stress I put on myself to do more.”

Climate change directly contributes to poverty, economic and infrastructure destruction, and the displacement of communities, which means social justice plays a big role, says Davenport. In developing countries, dealing with poverty and economic disruption often trump the issues of tackling climate change and dealing with the mental impact of it.

Ahmed Al-Kheerow is a product designer and environmentalist in Iraq, and a member of the Jiyan Foundation for Human Rights which provides healthcare in Iraq and Kurdistan. “We work to reduce stigma and improve dialogue, intending to ​​bring people from different backgrounds and religions together,” he says. “Some people are resistant, but we find that once you start to show them the impact, they’re inclined to act on it.”

But Al-Kheerow says the climate and mental health isn’t seen as a top priority in Iraq. “If you start mentioning climate mental health issues, people will probably turn around and ask, ‘Why would you care about that when we have such poverty?'” he says. “When events such as the earthquakes in our neighbouring Turkey are happening, the mental impact of that is, in my opinion, a bigger concern than war for many people. But people in my community aren’t aware enough to discuss that, which is what needs to change.”

Some people are resistant, but we find that once you start to show them the impact, they’re inclined to act on it — Ahmed Al-Kheerow

This same lack of communication is felt by Shelot Masithi in South Africa. Founder of the non-profit #She4Earth, she works to educate children and young people in her community about climate mental health and the climate crisis.

“From an African perspective, we don’t have the practical sense of providing mental health solutions to people who have things like depression, trauma or PTSD, because it’s not discussed,” says Masithi. She believes more needs to be done to allow space for young people to be directly involved in making change high up. “I think older decision-makers need to step aside and be the advisors, while young people are the orchestrators of mitigating climate change,” she says, adding that more could be done to help younger people from the Global South and marginalised communities to attend climate conferences.

From left to right: Ahmed Al-Kheerow, Poorva Patil, Abhay Singh Sachal

Shelot’s eco-anxiety is triggered by challenges that might be unfamiliar to people in the Global North. “Anytime, there could be no water coming out of the tap. That gives me anxiety. You don’t know how long it’ll last – a day, a week, a month – and it’s so frustrating,” she says. “This means people can’t water crops, or their gardens to feed themselves, which takes away their ability to be self-sufficient.”

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Eyal Weintraub is also working to improve education about climate change, and co-founded Youth for Climate Argentina in 2019. “We wanted our voices to be heard on the problems we face in Latin America,” he says.

When it comes to mental health discussions in the community, Weintraub’s experience is positive. “Argentina is a country that gives a lot of importance to mental health, it’s not taboo to talk about here in my experience,” he says. But the country has a large population living in poverty. “So, people aren’t worrying about mental health in terms of climate, they’re worried about affording rent, food and keeping a job first and foremost.”

Weintraub deals with his anxieties around climate change by taking time for himself and not letting the weight of his work overwhelm him. “People experience burnout in this field, and I get why. But with proper structures and support systems in place, that can be avoided,” he says.

COP2, an initiative working with the World Health Organization and with the Race to Resilience initiative launched in 2021, is building capacity within communities of all kinds to foster mental resilience. Recognising the importance mental resilience in a changing world, their aim is to help people and communities to manage the anxieties climate change can trigger and take the actions they need to respond to climate change.

Such mental resilience and climate action can go hand in hand. Amit Singh, one of the founding committee members of the YCHN, says that when he feels hopeless about climate change, he can also feel empowered to take action “because I feel that is the only way that there is any chance of success”.

Singh concludes that younger people have a lot of power when they work together. He says that it can sometimes feel like younger people are being left with the responsibility to resolve the challenges of climate change, but this is motivating people like him to come together. “Our power is in our numbers, in our solidarity and kinship with one another.”

 

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Feature presented by the Global Climate and Health Alliance as part of the Climate and Us series. 

Climate change is predicted to push an additional 132 million people into poverty worldwide by 2030 – of which one third will be caused by health factors. Increases in extreme weather events are also stretching healthcare services to their limits. How are countries preparing for more climate-related health crises?

When tropical storm Freddy arrived in Malawi in March 2023, it had already set records for its intensity and severity. While in Mozambique, the storm had previously been classified as a cyclone, which is stronger in intensity than a tropical storm, and reached wind speeds comparable to a Category 5 hurricane. The storm would eventually last for 36 days, making it one of the longest on record in the southern hemisphere. Climate change is increasing the intensity and duration of cyclones and storms, as warming seas fuel their strength (though there is some evidence that there will be fewer storms overall in the future).

But it was in Malawi where Freddy’s effects would be most significantly felt. The storm brought 600mm (24 inches) of rain in some areas, resulting in widespread flooding and landslides. Roads were washed away, houses flooded and lives destroyed. In total, more than 1,000 people died as a result of Freddy in Malawi. But healthcare professionals feared that the long-term effects of the storm might lead to many more deaths still.

“With Malawi already having a very lengthy and aggressive cholera outbreak, and then experiencing Freddy on top of that, we were anticipating that we would have very high cases of cholera,” says Anda Nindi Nyondo, country director for Malawi at Seed Global Health, a non-profit organisation who have been training family medicine physicians and midwives in Malawi for more than a decade, among other sub-Saharan countries.

Healthcare workers carrying out checks

 

Tens of thousands of cases of cholera had already been reported in Malawi before Freddy arrived. The outbreak started around February 2022 after tropical storm Ana arrived in January. These months are typically Malawi’s rainy season, and with cholera being endemic in the country, Nyondo says healthcare experts expect that each rainy season will bring more cases.

People who live on the shores of Lake Malawi are particularly at risk of the effects of flooding. “And these people were being housed in temporary camps where sanitation is always questionable and safe water sources are very, very scarce,” says Nyondo. “So that means poor water sources, poor sanitation and poor latrines – especially for people who have to go very far to get clean water. Those people use the streams and rainwater sources which are nearer during the rainy season. So this would make them more likely to get cholera.”

“Climate change impacts us in such myriad ways,” says Vanessa Kerry, a physician, CEO and co-founder of Seed Global Health and the World Health Organization’s director-general special envoy for climate change and health. “It’s direct trauma, it’s loss of housing, it’s changes in food and agriculture, it’s changes in water security. It is also then the direct health impacts in terms of non-communicable diseases, communicable diseases, mental health, maternal health.”

But something unusual happened after Freddy. Despite the high number of cholera cases, and the undoubted devastation that the storm brought, the new cholera cases weren’t as high as Nyondo and others had anticipated. “The numbers did increase, but not to the alarming state that we thought.”

Group of healthcare workers
 

“We [Malawi] had strategies in place already that ended up helping to contain the cholera cases,” adds Nyondo. “We had people already in the districts in place to work on the water and sanitation. There were already treatment camps and facilities to be able to screen and diagnose or disease surveillance. So it was easier to respond.”

We spend a lot more time, energy and resources responding to crises – Vanessa Kerry

During emergencies, Nyondo says that the districts they work with are set up to make rapid assessments of their priorities. By having a flexible trained workforce at the ready, non-communicable diseases, mental health burdens, maternal mortality, and infectious diseases can be treated rapidly. Some of these rapid responses are based on lessons from Covid-19.

“I think what people don’t realise is we spend a lot more time, energy and resources responding to crises,” says Kerry. A better approach, she adds, is to prepare well for crises.

Preparation is key

The earliest origins of Seed Global Health started when Kerry was 14 in Vietnam. She saw poverty and a lack of resources that she says she had never seen before. “I’m not going to say I knew what to do with it at that moment, but I definitely carried it with me such that when I went into my medical career, I knew I needed to incorporate that experience into the work I did. It influenced where I chose to go to medical school. I then had a series of opportunities where I worked in Uganda, Rwanda and Ghana, and that reinforced the fact that there are two very different standards of healthcare in the world.”

But, she adds, disparities in access to and quality of healthcare are seen in countries all over the world, including the US, UK and other more developed nations.

Vanessa Kerry giving a speech
 

To date, Seed Global Health has trained 34,000 doctors, nurses and midwives in seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. “And, we’re supporting building an emergency medicine system in Uganda where over half the deaths are from a failure of emergency and triage services,” says Kerry. “We’re building up family medicine in Zambia where at least 70% of the healthcare problems, be it from climate change or generally, can be treated by a general GP-like physician. We started Seed with a deep belief that people are the backbone of strong health systems.”

We’re not going to escape the impacts of climate change – we’re living it – Vanessa Kerry

Seed Global Health’s investment in human resources is something that inspires Nyondo. “We will begin training healthcare providers to not think about climate change and health separately, but to automatically and deliberately think about them as linked,” she says.

Kerry reiterates that the impact of climate change on health is not a future problem, but one that we are experiencing now considering that, for example, 6.7 million people die each year from air pollution. “We’re talking about our survival here,” says Kerry. “I think that’s what folks need to begin to understand – we’re not going to escape the impacts of climate change because we’re living it. I think there’s a win-win path forward [by improving healthcare and mitigating climate change], but it’s about helping people to understand what that is.”

Doctor making notes
 

Kerry and Nyondo reiterate that there is a long way to go. Kerry cites women dying daily in Sierra Leone from postpartum haemorrhage as one example of why the work of Seed and partners is so critical.

“The decisions we’ve been making collectively as a society I would consider to be a pandemic of poor and expedient choices – short-term wins,” says Kerry. “We can’t work that way anymore. At this moment in time we are at one of the most existential and tumultuous times in modern history. And I think we have to ask ourselves what is a way forward?”

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How to protect communities and build resilience to natural disasters

How to protect communities and build resilience to natural disasters

PAID AND PRESENTED BY INOGEN ALLIANCE
AS PART OF THE CLIMATE AND US SERIES

As climate change threatens more extreme weather, communities are at increased risk of disaster.

How can local expertise and a global perspective prepare them?

“It was a category five cyclone of enormous strength, creating winds so forceful that palm trees, designed by nature to withstand strong winds, were being stripped down to the trunk and snapped in half,” says John Leeves, remembering the effect of Cyclone Winston.

In 2017, the storm left Fiji, and other Pacific island nations, devastated. Homes were flattened and families uprooted. “It was probably the most intense cyclone to hit Fiji on record,” adds Terry Atalifo, one of the senior meteorologists working for Fiji Meteorological Service during Cyclone Winston.

Leeves, a senior geotechnical and natural disasters engineer at Tonkin + Taylor, based in Auckland, New Zealand, recalls the devastation he witnessed when visiting a number of villages destroyed in Fiji. “A lot of them were located on the coast, so as the eye of the cyclone came in, you not only had incredibly strong winds to contend with but also a massive storm surge,” he says.

In total, 44 Fijians lost their lives. The devastating health impact of the disaster has lasted right up to today, with some communities left without water for sanitation and drinking, and food sources polluted or destroyed. “About 62% of the population was affected during Winston – that’s equivalent to 540,000 people,” says Atalifo. “And the impact is huge, especially for the communities. And there was a lot of impact to agriculture, which was the sector that was most badly damaged.”

Natural disasters, such as cyclones, droughts, and floods, have increased in frequency and severity globally over the past century, impacting the health of communities. Natural disasters can exacerbate food and water insecurity, spread disease and pollution, and damage infrastructure.  

Tonkin + Taylor worked on the response to Cyclone Winston to accurately map the damage across the islands, seeing which areas were the worst affected.  

Building a digital damage viewer meant that the Fijian government, NGOs and those helping with recovery efforts could view it online. “This meant that they could look at every single area to get a good idea of what the people there needed,” Leeves says. 

Tonkin + Taylor is part of the Inogen Alliance, a global network of environmental, health, safety and sustainability consulting firms which connects nearly 80 associate companies from 65 countries with more than 6,000 professionals, and is trying to help communities prepare for these disasters to become more resilient for the future.  

From improving access to emergency supplies to rapid disaster mapping in the wake of a disaster, the Alliance partners with agencies and businesses worldwide to find sustainable solutions for local communities. Their work in Fiji enabled aid to reach people a lot quicker than it would have otherwise, says Leeves.  

What gets me out of bed is the fact that I feel we’re making a difference. We’re empowering communities to do something

– Richard Reinen-Hamill

Coastal communities are increasingly threatened by climate change, and the Alliance’s work is being applied to good effect elsewhere. 

Hawke’s Bay, on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island, is home to several coastal communities, along with millions of dollars of infrastructure and is subject to existing coastal hazards that are anticipated to become more severe with climate change.  

“The area was severely impacted in the 1930s by an earthquake, which saw some of the land rising by 2m (6.6ft) and some of it dropping by 1m,” says Richard Reinen-Hamill, the sector director for natural hazards resilience at Tonkin + Taylor. “It’s a highly [geologically] active and dynamic part of the world.”

Reinen-Hamill and his colleagues and partners produced The Clifton to Tāngōio Coastal Hazard Strategy, which is a plan for communities along a 22km (13.7-mile) stretch of Hawke’s Bay to adapt to the challenges of coastal erosion. The plan, which includes recommendations such as the managed retreat of communities away from at-risk areas, is a New Zealand first in terms of the scale and complexity of the assessment over an area this large, says Reinen-Hamill.  

“I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom,” says Reinen-Hamill. “I guess what gets me out of bed is the fact that I feel we’re making a difference. We’re helping communities and empowering the communities to do something. This is a sentiment shared across the Alliance.”

In addition to the physical loss and destruction that these disasters bring, diseases can spread rapidly. The March 2022 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that we will see an escalation of infectious diseases without swift climate action.  

Outbreaks of cholera, for example, are closely related to environmental conditions. High temperatures can accelerate the growth of pathogens, and high rainfall can increase the risk of wastewater contaminating either raw or treated water.  

“I grew up playing in the river and waterfalls when I moved to a rural area where my mother’s family lived,” says Janaina Da Silva, a project coordinator at Antea Brasil, also part of the Inogen Alliance. “But as I grew older, I watched the water get polluted. It’s getting harder to predict what is going to happen five years, even 10 years from now.”

While Brazil has a great amount of water as a whole, those resources are not available to everyone. Some regions have water in abundance, but do not have the infrastructure to distribute it equally, while other regions are water stressed. “This is a very serious situation here in Brazil. We have places that don’t have enough water to supply the population that lives there,” Da Silva says. “We have to work together to take care of a resource that does not belong to anybody. Clean water and safe sanitation is not owned by anyone, and it is for everyone, no matter what. Some companies understood this and have been applying the concepts of water stewardship, one of the services provided by Antea Brasil.”

Flooding is the most common natural disaster, with 44% of disasters associated with it worldwide. It affected more than two billion people worldwide between 1998 and 2017. In 2021, after heavy rain across Europe there were severe floods in Germany. 

“When we look back at it now, it’s clear how big the impact of that incident was,” says Florian Schnetzer, a senior environmental consultant with HPC Germany who are an Inogen Alliance Associate. “Approximately 70,000 people lost their homes, with a further 180 or more losing their lives. This alone shows the importance of putting precautionary measures in place.”

 “Our focus has had to become incredibly more climate-driven,” says Sara Austin, the mapping and geospatial lead for Antea Group USA, another Alliance member. “We’re trying to keep this data up to date because we know that there’s a risk that this information can change.” 

Preparedness, adaptation and resilience will be the best strategy in the future, says Schnetzer. “We cannot put a stop to climate change,” he says. “But, by using our digital models mapping to track water volume and precipitation rates, we can manage how we prepare for it.” 

Back in Fiji, they are seeing just how important this is. “Climate resilience is almost like the cornerstone of all our national, regional and global development,” says Atalifo. “It’s almost like the end goal of everything that we do nowadays. And in this part of the world where our economies are small, the infrastructure is quite vulnerable, here in the Pacific, the impacts are quite profound.”

Climate change presents complex challenges, so resilience and preparedness require international collaboration between communities and industry professionals worldwide. While each new climate challenge is different, some lessons can be applied globally to prepare other regions if they are tailored to each situation with local expertise.

“The lessons that we have learned from Cyclone Winston helped us to improve the way we do things in terms of early warning and early action,” he says. “Even though it has done a lot of damage to Fiji, the lessons learned from Winston has made Fiji more resilient.”

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Media Coverage of GCHA During COP28

COP28 Negotiations. Photo: Milena Sergeeva

COP28 Negotiations. Photo: Milena Sergeeva

Here’s a selection how the Global Climate and Health Alliance was quoted or mention in media during COP28

It is sometimes easy to forget that the words over which delegates are fighting lead to real-life damages. Dr Jeni Miller, executive director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, said the most recent draft of the COP28 text would be “disastrous for people’s health” and represents a major step backwards at a time when we urgently need to be accelerating action.

“Small islands states have rightly called this text a death sentence,” she said. “The lack of any actual commitment to phase out fossil fuels leaves us on a trajectory to spiraling climate impacts on health that will exceed the limits of our health systems’ and communities’ abilities to adapt. And it will continue to expose people all over the world to the myriad health impacts of fossil fuel even beyond their role in climate change, such as the over 5 million deaths per year from air pollution alone.”

 

COP28: ‘Abated’ Fossil Fuels Would Still Prove Devastating to Human Health

Protect Health - End Fossil Fuels: Skyler Knutzen/Global Climate and Health Alliance.

Skyler Knutzen/Global Climate and Health Alliance.

Dubai, December 10, 2023: As the COP28 climate negotiations roll into their final days, the Global Climate and Health Alliance today warned negotiators that some of the pathways available in the current COP28 texts will prove detrimental to human health. While the future use of fossil fuel use – responsible for 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and 90% of carbon dioxide – is being debated, the health implications are not under discussion.

From a health point of view, points of concern include:

  • Full phase out of fossil fuels vs phase out of “unabated” fossil fuels
  • Phase out of fossil fuels vs phase out of fossil fuel emissions
  • Phase out of all fossil fuels vs phase out of coal (but not oil and gas)

Some countries oppose mentioning fossil fuels in the final COP28 agreement entirely. Others are debating whether to commit to phasing out all use of fossil fuels, or phasing out ‘unabated’ fossil fuels, which would allow continued unfettered use of ‘abated’ fossil fuels. ‘Abated’ refers to relying on unproven technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS) to extract CO2 from emissions generated by fossil fuel use. Proposals also include a focus on “emissions” rather than fossil fuels; or to limit phase out language to coal, rather than all fossil fuels.

“The difference for people’s health of phasing out only ‘unabated’ fossil fuels, versus a full fossil fuel phase out is night and day”, said Dr Jeni Miller, Executive Director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance. “Important questions remain about whether carbon capture and storage can work at scale. But even setting that aside, CCS, and similarly, focusing on reducing emissions rather than the fossil fuel sources of emissions, does nothing about the many other pollutants produced when fossil fuels are burned, and that are devastating to human health.”

“Currently 99% of the world’s population breathes unhealthy air, with five million people per year dying prematurely due to the air pollution produced by use of fossil fuels. While CCS, if it worked as promised by the fossil fuel industry, would remove CO2, it would not address the small particulates that drive respiratory diseases, cardiovascular disease including strokes, and that damage children’s growing lungs. CCS also does not remove the impact on people’s health from fossil fuel extraction and transport, and is nothing more than a way to prolong the era of fossil use”, said Miller.

“It will also not be enough to phase out coal while the expansion of the use of oil and gas continues. Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is a potent greenhouse gas with over 80 times the warming power of CO2 over a 20 year period. Methane is also a precursor of ground level ozone, a harmful air pollutant; and methane leaks and emissions, along the entire supply chain from extraction to the use of gas in the home, are accompanied by highly toxic co-pollutants, including carcinogens such as benzene.”

“Like coal, oil and gas are responsible for significant health harms at every stage, from extraction, through processing and transport, to when they are burned.”

“COP28’s only sane pathway – one that will protect people’s health – is an agreement that sets in motion the orderly and just phase out of all fossil fuels”, said Miller. “Reducing ‘unabated’ fossil fuel use in return for as yet unproven, undeveloped and barely existing carbon capture technologies is not a credible solution. Furthermore, relying on these ‘abated’ fossil fuels would still mean extraction, transport and burning of fossil fuels, with all of the associated impacts on human health and well-being. It’s time to make a bold leap forward. We already possess pathways for ending the fossil fuel era, which will ultimately benefit our health, and the climate”.

“Coming into COP, the global health community made clear that fossil fuels are incompatible with protecting people’s health and with health equity, when leaders from organizations representing over 46 million health professionals and health workers delivered an open letter to COP 28 President-Designate Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber calling for an “accelerated, just and equitable phase-out of fossil fuels as the decisive path to health for all”, concluded Miller.

ENDS

See also: Towards a science-based definition of ‘unabated’ fossil fuels (Zero Carbon Analytics)

Contacts:
Dave Walsh, Communications Advisor, Global Climate and Health Alliance, [email protected], +34 691 826 764

About GCHA
The Global Climate and Health Alliance is a consortium of more than160 health professional and health civil society organizations and networks from around the world addressing climate change. We are united by a shared vision of an equitable, sustainable future, in which the health impacts of climate change are minimized, and the health co-benefits of climate change mitigation are maximised.

Find out more: https://climateandhealthalliance.org/about/