Health in the Global Environmental Agenda: A policy guide
While there is growing awareness of the steep health impacts of global environmental changes—including the climate crisis, accelerating biodiversity loss, and an increasing saturation of plastic and chemical wastes—bringing the health and environment sectors together for joint action is easier said than done.
-
Stakeholders from the #health community are mostly unaware of—or not visible within—discussions and negotiations on global environmental policies.
This can and must change to address Planetary Health and achieve the #SDGs. -
The world in 2022 faces a triple planetary crisis of environmental degradation (#climate, #pollution, #biodiversity loss) and a Triple Billion global health burden of people who need better #health care.
-
Guidelines on issues such as air and water quality, diet, and pollution should be reflected in environmental assessments and influence national plans for climate change, biodiversity, and other issues.
This policy guide provides meaningful, succinct, and targeted information to enable health experts to engage in and follow global environmental processes at an elevated level, focusing on intersections where policy approaches could incorporate health and well-being issues. The report's goal is to create a bridge so experts on environmental agreements contribute to robust health policy, while health professionals strengthen environmental agreements—all while inviting a broad landscape view of Planetary Health and sustainable development.
Funded by
You might also be interested in
Health in global biodiversity governance: what is next?
The dependency of human health and wellbeing on nature is documented across disciplines, regions, cultures, and economies. Environmental degradation contributes substantially to the global burden of disease and concurrent global environmental changes are increasingly recognised as public health threats, worldwide. The 196 parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have called for increased engagement on biodiversity and health since 2014, while calls from stakeholders for integrated decision making are similarly long standing. Yet few civil society health organisations have historically engaged with the CBD and its intergovernmental negotiating process. This situation is, however, changing. In 2022, civil society health professionals and organisations were involved in the CBD agenda-setting (intersessional subsidiary body) and decision-making (Conference of the Parties [COP]) meetings. Five civil society health organisations attended the 15th UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) in Montréal, Canada, as newly accredited delegations to the CBD. The new participation of these organisations in global biodiversity governance embodies the interdisciplinary work needed to take a whole-of-society approach to respecting planetary boundaries and prioritising the environmental determinants of health. The agenda of the UN CBD recognises and increasingly includes health. Now is the time to mobilise contributions from diverse health experts to inform integrated policy.
National State of the Environment Report: Uzbekistan
The National State of the Environment Report (NSoER) is a comprehensive document that provides a snapshot of current environmental trends in Uzbekistan's socio-economic development for citizens, experts, and policy-makers in the country of Uzbekistan.
IGF Mining Policy Framework
A compendium of best practices for governments to manage the full range of issues in the mining sector.
On Behalf of My Delegation (Second Edition)
This backpacker’s guide to the world of climate change negotiations sums up key challenges faced by negotiators and ways to overcome these problems.