Specific health actions need to be included in countries’ climate targets – officially called the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – according to several health advocates speaking at the UN Climate Week in New York City over the past week.

“Our agenda should be health-centric,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), speaking on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly.

“We need to use the resources wisely, meaning targeting those populations, affected populations and then from there of course you can move to the rest because resources are limited,” Tedros said.

The demand for a holistic view in framing NDCs to ensure a “healthy and stable future” in was also reiterated in a signed letter by 20 leading civil society organizations and sent to officials at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), the entity supporting global response to climate change.

The rise in extreme weather events, such as heatwaves and floods, are directly impacting health and healthcare facilities. 

Dr Vanessa Kerry, CEO of the health non-profit Seed Global Health, called for health to be “embedded in the NDCs”. 

“We need to have health metrics, and we need to stop thinking about it as a sunk cost, but rather as an investment,” Kerry said. 

Centering health at COP

This decade, health has already gone from being a side note at the annual UN Climate Conference of Parties (COP) to having a day dedicated to the subject at the last COP in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). 

Both the Baku (Azerbaijan) COP presidency, which will  host this year and the Belém (Brazil) COP presidency, which will host next year, said that they aim to integrate health into climate conversations further.  

“Brazil was hit this year with the biggest dengue epidemic for ever, and this was the very consequence of the climate change and the high temperature that we are facing in Brazil and in all of the world,” said Ethel Maciel, Brazil’s Secretary of Health Surveillance and Environment.

She added that health equity will be a major focus and that Brazil has appointed a specific coordinator to work on the link between climate change and health equity.

The speed and extent of action though rely also on resources. For instance, the UAE recognized that having the resources and universal health coverage helps as they have the building blocks for what you need to be healthy. 

“We would say, for the nationally determined contributions, please embed [and] institutionalize targets for health in there, be they things like the impact of air pollution on health, be they heat stroke, be they mental health issues, number of events prevented. Whatever they are, please institutionalize certain metrics of health inside your nationally determined contributions,” urged Prof Maha Taysir Barakat, Assistant Minister for Health and Life Sciences in the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Dr Maria Neira, WHO’s director of Environment, Climate Change and Health, drew attention to the fact that access to renewable energy will improve health by reducing air pollution.  

“So now we need to use health as a motivation. The health argument that we are taking to the COPs has to be extremely strong, and we are the ones that needs to engage,” she said, referring to the health sector.  

Working with cities for impact

It has become clear over the years that national governments are slow to move on climate targets. In addition, when it comes to the climate and health link, a range of stakeholders are needed for effective response. 

The Baku COP Presidency has an initiative on climate resilient cities of which health will be a big part. 

Patty O’Hayer, global head of corporate affairs at Reckitt, said that city mayors need to be supported to bring out change as they have a unique perspective and don’t work in silos. 

“Cities give you that kind of umbrella way that you can look at all of those aspects and make sure that you’re spending your time, your effort, your energy around the social determinants of health, decarbonizing the health care systems and thinking about public health in a much more holistic way,” she said.