During COP23 at the High Level Presidency Event on Health, the COP President Hon PM Bainimarama of Fiji called for the World Health Organisation to develop a report on health and climate change to be delivered at COP24 in Katowice in December 2018. He has since followed this up formally with a letter to Dr Tedros, WHO Director-General, in March this year.
The aim of the COP24 report is twofold. It will provide 1) a global state of knowledge on the interconnection between climate change and health issues and 2) an overview of the initiatives and tools through which the public health community at country, regional and global levels is currently supporting and scaling-up actions to implement the Paris Agreement, for a healthier and more sustainable society.
In response to this request, WHO is compiling evidence on the health impacts of climate change, health adaptations actions to address climate change, the health co-benefits of climate actions (including health benefits of enhanced action on short-lived climate pollutants such as black carbon and methane), and the important role that the health sector plays in every country to meet the goals of the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement.
Clim-HEALTH Africa would like to present this report as the result not only of WHO’s work, but as the result of a Global Public Health Community consultation and contribution. We are therefore consulting with NGOs, academia, key donor agencies working on health and climate change, health practitioners, and relevant UN colleagues. Please see the list of experts under consultation here.
In order to be comprehensive and keep a consistent position, we would like to propose an outline based on the “Health Action Agenda” approved at the 2nd Global Conference on Health and Climate, held in Paris from 7-8 July 2016.
We would really appreciate your active collaboration in the preparation and validation of the report, and we would also welcome your suggestion for additional contributors.
If you would like to contribute to the report, please see the first draft annotated outline as 1) a Google Document here, where you can add comments directly to the shared document online or 2) a downloadable Word document here, which you can download and annotate offline. Kindly send your edited document with tracked changes to Sally Edwards (edwardss