Well, we’ve had the annual United Nations Climate Change conference, COP28, which concluded in Dubai last week. This is to provide a quick round-up of what COP28 means for health and health information.
This was the first COP with health finally on the agenda – amazingly, the subject wasn’t considered in the 27 COPs since the series of conferences was inaugurated in Berlin in 1995. And yet we know that (according to WHO) climate change is causing, and will continue to cause an additional 250,000 deaths per year in all kinds of ways. We also know that the health sector itself has a worse carbon footprint than, say, the travel industry.
The COP lasted two weeks, and one day (December 3) was devoted to health. The Health Day was staged by the COP28 UAE Presidency, in collaboration with WHO, the Wellcome Trust and partners. At the end of the Day, a Declaration was tabled (now signed by 123 governments) in which the countries accepted the following common objectives (this is my summary of a longer text):
– To establish and apply policies that maximize the health gains from climate mitigation and adaptation actions
– To facilitate collaboration on human, animal, environment and climate health challenges
– To work across a range of sectors – including food and agriculture, water and sanitation, housing, urban planning, health care, transport and energy
– To anticipate, and implement adaptation interventions against climate-sensitive disease and health risks, by bolstering climate-health information services (NOTE: this is the one mention of health information in the Declaration)
– To promote a comprehensive response to address the psychosocial impacts of climate change on health
– To combat inequalities within and among countries, in the context of the SDGs
- To curb emissions and reduce waste in the health sector (which has a worse carbon footprint than the travel sector)
– To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of finance flows
The Declaration recognized that climate considerations need to be incorporated into global health work programs, including those of the World Health Organization. Health should be taken into account in all future national planning. Progress on climate change and health would be reviewed at future UN Climate Change Conferences, World Health Assemblies, and other global convenings.
HIFA profile: Chris Zielinski: As a Visiting Fellow and Lecturer at the Centre for Global Health, University of Winchester, Chris leads the Partnerships in Health Information (Phi) programme, which supports knowledge development and brokers healthcare information exchanges of all kinds. He is the elected Vice President (and President-in-Waiting) of the World Association of Medical Editors. Chris has held senior positions in publishing and knowledge management with WHO in Brazzaville, Geneva, Cairo and New Delhi, with FAO in Rome, ILO in Geneva, and UNIDO in Vienna. He served on WHO's Ethical Review Committee, and was an originator of the African Health Observatory. He also spent three years in London as Chief Executive of the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society. Chris has been a director of the UK Copyright Licensing Agency, Educational Recording Agency, and International Association of Audiovisual Writers and Directors. He has served on the boards of several NGOs and ethics groupings (information and computer ethics and bioethics). chris AT chriszielinski.com. His publications are at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chris-Zielinski and https://winchester.academia.edu/ChrisZielinski/ and his blogs are http://ziggytheblue.wordrpress.com and https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ziggytheblue
