Contacting health professionals during COP28: Email [email protected] to make contact with health experts from around the world attending COP28. Let us know what subjects and regions you’re covering.
Dubai, 2 December, 2023:- During this morning’s World Climate Action Summit at COP28, world leaders were called upon to “make COP28 count” during the screening of a provocative video featuring testimonies and rallying calls from 25 health workers from around the world, who have borne witness to climate-related health impacts on their patients.
The video shown – and livestreamed – during the health segment of the summit, takes the form of a series of medical prescriptions making a direct call to heads of state to step up and provide the necessary treatment – climate action – as a cure for the climate crisis and its devastating health impacts on people around the world.
“We are losing out patients to climate change”, says the video, “and we’re losing our patience with leaders”. The video concludes with a stark message to the heads of state gathered at COP28: “Make COP28 count: people’s lives depend on it”, accompanied by a powerful human heartbeat.
“We hope that the over one hundred heads of state present grasped the urgent message in this film – that the climate crisis is a health crisis, and the only way out is to prepare and respond to the impacts we can no longer avoid; and tackle continued extraction and use of fossil fuels including coal, oil and gas, to avoid reaching temperatures we simply cannot prepare for”, said Global Climate and Health Alliance Executive Director Dr Miller. “Phasing out of fossil fuels, justly and equitably, is a public health imperative and demands true leadership from every single one of the world leaders present.”
The short two-minute mixed media film, commissioned by the Global Climate and Health Alliance and created by Wit and Wisdom, with endorsement by the World Health Organization, was produced in advance of COP26 in Glasgow – however, the UAE COP Presidency invited the Global Climate and Health Alliance to update the video for world leaders attending COP28. The video conveys the messages supported by organizations representing over 46 million health workers around the world.
The Global Climate and Health Alliance joins the international health community in calling for:
- A full phase-out of fossil fuels is a public health imperative.G20 countries with the largest historic emissions must demonstrate leadership.
- A loss and damage fund that serves the health needs of communities, particularly those most impacted and least responsible for climate change.
- Finance for climate action across all fronts.
- Recognition of health as an outcome and a key measure and indicator of effective climate action.
Earlier this week, the Global Climate and Health Alliance wrote to health ministers attending COP28, urging them to join the health community in demanding that the health and wellbeing of people around the world is established as a central focus and benchmark for progress during the annual climate negotiations.
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/