Global Climate and Health Alliance

Health and Climate Network (2021-2023)

Advocating across sectors to deliver urgent responses to the climate crisis which deliver health for all.

Man walking and behind it is a large coal-fired power plant (istock, Walaiporn Sangkeaw, 2023)

The HCN (decommissioned in 2023) was a community of experts and organisations working together to advocate for health-centred climate policy. The network included expertise across sectors, including climate change, energy, transport, cities, food and diet, and health care and used this combined knowledge and experience to advocate solutions in the intersect between health and climate change.

The HCN community co-created policy to influence global decision making and held events, workshops and seminars to build a community and advocate together for healthy climate action. It also supported members to communicate policy messages at a national level and to their sectoral audiences. 

HCN’s objectives

The HCN aimed to:

  • Have the delivery of the Paris Climate Change Agreement viewed as the world’s most urgent action for global health.
  • Raise the urgency of global climate action by showing that many climate solutions can save lives and promote health benefits for all.
  • Encourage joint actions by decision-makers and stakeholders working on global climate change, energy transition, transport and mobility, food systems and health care towards a common goal of a healthy, climate safe future.
  • Have decision makers at COP27 to recognise health as a core negotiating theme and ensuring mitigation and adaptation outcomes maximise the co-benefits for health.

 

 

 

 

‘Without urgent, effective and equitable mitigation actions, climate change increasingly threatens the health and livelihoods of people around the globe’

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 WGIII, April 2022

 

HCN steering group members included:

HCN policy and resources

 

Shaping COP27 around African climate and health priorities

Download the briefing

For climate action to be effective, impactful, and healthy for African countries and people there must be a coming together of the climate framing of the north and the development framing of the south. The limited resources that reach the continent need to be justly distributed and practically focused on human wellbeing This briefing makes recommendations for COP27 to prioritise African health and climate.

  • Health must be a fundamental component of energy planning and decision making.
  • African Food systems must address western-style diets and obesity alongside food insecurity, malnutrition, and hunger.
  • African health sector response to climate change needs equipping, resourcing, and locally tailored responses

 

Paris Climate Change Agreement: urgent priority for global health

Download the climate and health briefing 

The climate crisis is a health threat that continues to grow and increase health inequalities internationally as we battle the Covid-19 pandemic. There is clear evidence that solutions to the climate crisis can also directly benefit people’s health.

  • Transitioning to healthier, climate-friendly transport systems that benefit everyone.
  • Shifting to sustainable food production and healthy diets.
  • Building sustainable, climate-resilient health systems, delivering care when and where it is needed.
  • Investing in a green and healthy economy by reorienting finance towards sustainable priorities.

Delivering the Paris Climate Agreement could be the world’s most important action for global health.

 

Diet and Food Systems for Health, Climate and Planet

Download the diet and food systems briefing

Current food systems – including the production, processing, transport, marketing and consumption of food – are driving poor diets, impacting people’s health, and damaging the environment and economies.

  • Food systems currently produce between 20 and 35% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. 
  • Poor diet is having health impacts in every country and is now the leading driver of non-communicable diseases, such as obesity, heart attack, stroke and diabetes, worldwide.
  • Malnutrition – including undernutrition, nutritional deficiencies and obesity – could cost society up to $3.5 trillion per year.

Shifting towards food systems that do not add to climate change can also support healthier diets and significantly reduce premature deaths worldwide. 

 

Energy Systems That Protect Climate and Health

Download the energy briefing

The burning of fossil fuels – oil, gas and coal – in the production of energy is the leading cause of climate change and one of the world’s greatest health risks. 

  • The energy system is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for nearly three quarters of global emissions.
  • Fossil fuel combustion is by far the largest source of health-damaging air pollution, causing around a quarter of adult deaths from stroke and heart disease, a third from lung cancer, and two-fifths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Providing carbon-free renewable energy to everyone who needs it will dramatically improve climate, human health and the economy.

  

Transport Systems That Protect Health and Climate

Download the transport briefing

Transport plays a critical role in society. But existing transport systems contribute to air pollution, traffic injuries and deaths, physical inactivity and socioeconomic exclusion.

  • Transport accounts for 24% of direct carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel use. Road vehicles account for nearly three-quarters of transport CO2 emissions.
  • One in four adults and 81% of adolescents are not sufficiently physically active, due in part to urban and transportation infrastructure.
  • The world’s poorest populations make most of their daily journeys on foot, as public transport is often unavailable or unaffordable. This can limit their access to critical services like education, healthcare and nutritious food.

Reshaping mobility with a focus on people and health will dramatically reduce these risks while increasing access to convenient, affordable transport and protecting the climate.

 

Sustainable and Climate Resilient Health Systems

Download the health systems briefing

Climate change is putting increasing strain on healthcare provision around the world. Already limited services are often disrupted by climate disasters, such as heatwaves, floods and droughts.

  • Global heating drives a range of health impacts worldwide, including malnutrition, infectious vector-borne diseases, diarrhoea, heat stress, direct trauma and mental illness.
  • The health sector – including health care delivery, facilities, operations and supply chains – accounts for 4.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The vast majority of these come from fossil fuel combustion and high-income countries.
  • If global healthcare were a country, it would be the fifth largest climate polluter on the planet.

Sustainable, resilient health systems are needed to deliver care when and where it is needed in an unstable climate, without further damaging the environment. 

The Health & Climate Network was funded by the Clean Air Fund