Call to action: Six global priorities for a health-centred response
Recognise, prepare for, and respond to the health emergencies of climate change through established WHO and broader UN mechanisms, and develop a new WHO instrument to formally recognise and address climate change as a global health emergency. Utilise the WHO Emergency Response Framework, the International Health Regulations and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee instruments to recognise, prevent, prepare for, and respond to the health and broader impacts of health emergencies driven by climate change, including by grading climate change-related emergency events and coordinating a cross-sectoral response that aligns surveillance and early warning systems with anticipatory action, health system preparedness, rapid and effective response that safeguards health systems and resource mobilisation. In addition, respond to the scientific evidence, including within this report, demonstrating that climate change is increasingly fuelling health emergencies, and that addressing their root cause requires coordinated, multisectoral and international mitigation and adaptation actions. To do so, establish a new WHO instrument to formally recognise and address climate change as a global health emergency with multiple linked impacts, enabling a coordinated international response that enables sustained anticipatory and preventative action, cross-sectoral and coordinated emergency management, and sustained resource mobilisation.
Align global governance and international systems around climate change and health as a top priority.
Align global governance and international systems around climate change and health as a top priority, and optimise the deployment of international resources to address it. Addressing climate change-related health risks requires coordinated and urgent adaptation and mitigation responses across sectors. Countries have the opportunity to build on the UN80 Initiative and the upcoming post-2030 agenda to deliver a new international governance architecture that enables and prioritises a coordinated, cross-sectoral, international response to climate change and health, thereby optimising the use of resources, maximising cost savings, breaking down silos, and ensuring that interventions deliver mutually reinforcing benefits across all sectors.
Prioritise and promote the urgent, just, and equitable reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as a global health imperative.
Prioritise and promote the urgent, just, and equitable reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as a global health imperative. Develop global and national roadmaps to deliver a just and healthy reduction of GHG emissions, including through a just transition away from polluting fuels (biomass and fossil fuels). Ensure these roadmaps account for, quantify, and maximise the health benefits from reduced air pollution, improved access to safe reliable and affordable energy, healthier diets, improved equity and more active lifestyles, while avoiding the health harms from extractive industries and overreliance on technologies which perpetuate the use of fossil fuels or introduce new health harms. Engage health professionals and organisations in the design and implementation of these roadmaps.
Make health and wellbeing improvements as core objectives and key measures of success across all climate action
Put health at the centre of climate action by placing present and future mortality reduction, health and wellbeing as core objectives and key measures of success across all climate action. Do this by integrating health outcomes into the target-setting, monitoring and evaluation of climate change interventions across UN programmes, the post-2030 agenda, and national policies, including climate finance allocation, and the planning, monitoring and implementation of climate action across sectors. This will help ensure that climate policies deliver and maximise their potential benefits for people and the planet on which their health depends, while identifying and avoiding unintended health harms from the transition.
Establish a global climate change and health data commons as a global public good.
Establish a global climate change and health data commons as critical public infrastructure and a global public good. The commons would improve the availability, interoperability, and integration of climate and health data disaggregated by relevant population groups and at high temporal and geographical resolution. This would support the development of climate change and health surveillance and health early warning systems; facilitate knowledge sharing to strengthen countries’ capacity to collect, manage, and share data; and help bridge critical data gaps. By providing a shared evidence base, the commons would strengthen the ability of countries to develop cohesive, effective, and evidence-informed responses that protect health from the impacts of climate change.
Increase the provision of grant-based and highly concessional climate change and health finance, and meet international obligations
Increase the provision of grant-based and highly concessional finance for climate change and health interventions, including by meeting international obligations including Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement and the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in Respect of Climate Change to support equitable climate action that protects and promotes health. Such finance is needed at a scale sufficient to enable implementation of adaptation and mitigation actions without exacerbating debt burdens through additional borrowing and interest repayments. Strengthening the availability of accessible, predictable, and equitable finance is essential to addressing the shared risks of climate change, reducing global inequities, and protecting the health and wellbeing of people in all countries.
