Governments can achieve a clean energy future for thriving healthy societies by effectively implementing a just energy transition, according to a briefing published by the Health and Climate Network. 

More than 1000 health professionals and 200 health organizations from around the world have today called on governments to urgently develop and implement a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to end global dependence on fossil fuels, in order to protect the health of people around the world.

As the Bonn Climate Change Conference closed this week, the Global Climate and Health Alliance (GCHA) described as “unconscionable” the failure by governments to progress towards financing for loss and damage – support to deal with the harms experienced by low income countries due to climate change impacts – and called on developed countries to ensure that the issue be put front and centre of COP27 negotiations.

Ahead of next week’s Bonn Climate Change Conference, the Global Climate and Health Alliance (GCHA) and partners are calling on world governments to set ambitious climate policies to ensure a planet that can provide for the health and prosperity for all, as November’s COP27 in Egypt approaches.

Following publication of an article in Lancet Regional Health – Americas by representatives of organizations that make up the Climate and Health Network of Latin America and the Caribbean, a webinar will present the articles’s message, “Code Red for the health response in Latin America and the Caribbean: improving people’s health through climate action”.

“By putting health and equity at the centre of climate policy making, governments can deliver policies that garner widespread support and maximise returns on investment. Policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions can also deliver cleaner air and water, healthier diets, more livable cities, and transportation systems designed to benefit the health and wellbeing of people.”

“The report drives home that governments must both take action to adapt our countries to the impacts we are already facing, and must also aggressively slash emissions in order to protect the lives and health of everyone on this planet”.

“The health community came to COP26 with clear demands from 46 million health workers on issues critical to protecting people’s health and social equity – yet COP26 has delivered on just a few of them.”

Dr Jeni Miller of the Global Climate and Health Alliance called for strong, clear action to ensure the protection of people’s health from the worst impacts of climate change.

“Every tenth of a degree of global warming will be counted in lost lives, just as every reduction in emissions will help improve people’s health.”

The letter warns the climate crisis is the single biggest health threat facing humanity and calls on world leaders to deliver on climate action.

Organizations in the region will work in partnership to protect the health of populations in Latin America from the impacts of climate change, and maximize the health co-benefits of climate action. In the framework of an event at COP26, in which the progress of the...

Health professionals and climate experts from around the world today called for urgent action to tackle the growing climate-related health crisis, during the Global Conference on Health and Climate Change in Glasgow alongside the COP26 UN climate change conference.

World leaders must make health and social equity the beating heart of COP26 negotiations, by taking concerted action to limit global heating to less than 1.5C in line with Paris Climate Agreement and findings of the scientific community, and delivering a rapid and just transition away from fossil fuels – beginning with immediate cuts to subsidies, said the Global Climate and Health Alliance today.

Health professionals and leaders from around the world will be attending the Global Health and Climate Conference on November 6th, during the COP26 UN climate change conference.