10 Billion Solutions: COP 29 Entrance, Mariana Castano Cano

COP 29 Entrance, 10 Billion Solutions/Mariana Castano Cano

Press coverage of the Global Climate and Health Alliance during COP29:

 

Key quotes:

Jess Beagley, policy lead at the Global Climate and Health Alliance, a consortium of over 200 health professional and civil society groups, warned that “if COP29 agrees on the text shown to us today, it would sign a death sentence for millions.”

The alliance’s executive director, Jeni Miller, pointed out that “many of the countries most impacted by climate change are already paying more to service their international loans than the combined budgets for their health systems and education, with devastating impacts on people’s health and well-being.”

“It is unconscionable that wealthy countries are proposing a climate finance deal that could worsen the debt burden of countries facing the brunt of a climate crisis they did not cause,” Miller asserted. “As people around the world experience firsthand the devastating impacts of heat, storms, floods, and droughts, the failure of developed countries to step up to their responsibilities is completely unacceptable, not to mention profoundly shortsighted.”

Common Dreams: Critics Call COP29 Climate Finance Draft ‘Slap in the Face’ by Rich Nations

“Wealthy countries must commit to climate finance in the order of trillions to enable the delivery of climate action commensurate with the health risks faced by the world’s eight billion people,” Jess Beagley, policy lead at the Global Climate and Health Alliance, told Health Policy Watch.

Health Policy Watch: ‘Road to Ruin’: Nations Clash over Multi-Trillion Climate Bill as COP29 Opens

“We need to not only think of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector but also tackle air pollution issues so that people can breathe clean air,” Jeni Miller, executive director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, told Context.

“Governments need to think of how lowering people’s air pollution exposure can lead to fewer asthma exacerbations and heart attacks, and how these health benefits can help offset the cost of taking that action.”

Reuters Context Newsroom: COP 29: Health-focused climate action in the spotlight

“Health workers are seeing the impacts of climate change firsthand, in the suffering of patients and communities they serve. During COP29, it is time for all governments to demonstrate readiness to protect people’s lives by getting serious about bold climate action. Wealthy governments must deliver the funding needed to help the most impacted countries to build their resilience and response to climate shocks. And together, governments must spell out how and when they will achieve the fossil fuel phase out promised at COP28, to deliver a full, healthy, and just clean energy transition.”

Jeni Miller, PhD, Executive Director, Global Climate and Health Alliance
WHO demands urgent integration of health in climate negotiations ahead of COP29

Jeni Miller, executive director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, said “this year has underlined the growing impacts of a warming climate on people’s health and wellbeing”.

Agence France Presse/Radio France International: Heat, air pollution, disease: How climate change affects health