12th August 2022
The UK Health Alliance on Climate Change has joined with the World Health Organisation and civil society and academic partners from around the world, the Global Climate and Health Alliance made a joint submission to the August 2022 call for inputs to the UNFCCC Global Stocktake. The Global Stocktake is a process to evaluate the progress made in implementing the Paris Agreement, and therefore by how much ambition should be increased in future NDCs. The joint submission was based on the following key principles:
- Failure to implement the Paris Agreement through action across all sectors will result in catastrophic health impacts in every region of the world. In addition, climate action can yield health co-benefits.
- Public health is a powerful accelerator for climate action: framing and monitoring climate action in health terms can build widespread support for ambitious action, and yield high economic returns on investment.
- Healthy populations are necessary for both economic productivity and overall climate resilience, being more likely to withstand and recover from climate shocks. This can be understood as health resilience.
- Public health is therefore both a prerequisite for and a critical indicator of the successful implementation of long-term goals of the Paris Agreement.
- The healthcare sector can play a key role in directly delivering mitigation and adaptation.
- The health community should be consulted in relevant areas of climate policymaking to maximize health gains.
A previous submission was made by the Global Climate and Health Alliance to the Global Stocktake in February 2022, available here
The August submission by the health community to the Global Stocktake can be viewed here here
Thanks to the Global Climate and Health Alliance for their leadership in this work