Climate action for health: Inter-regional engagement to share knowledge to guide mitigation and adaptation actions

Climate change, attributable to human activity, is increasingly contributing to a global health crisis. The scale, nature and timing of adverse effects on physical and mental health, via direct and indirect pathways, vary within and between regions but there are common challenges that can be tackled...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Fears, Robin, Canales-Holzeis, Claudia, Caussy, Deoraj, Harper, Sherilee L., Hoe, Victor Chee Wai, McNeil, Jeremy N., Mogwitz, Johanna, ter Meulen, Volker, Haines, Andy
Format: Article
Published: Wiley 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:http://eprints.um.edu.my/47174/
https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13210
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
id my.um.eprints.47174
record_format eprints
spelling my.um.eprints.471742024-12-30T06:19:30Z http://eprints.um.edu.my/47174/ Climate action for health: Inter-regional engagement to share knowledge to guide mitigation and adaptation actions Fears, Robin Canales-Holzeis, Claudia Caussy, Deoraj Harper, Sherilee L. Hoe, Victor Chee Wai McNeil, Jeremy N. Mogwitz, Johanna ter Meulen, Volker Haines, Andy RA Public aspects of medicine Climate change, attributable to human activity, is increasingly contributing to a global health crisis. The scale, nature and timing of adverse effects on physical and mental health, via direct and indirect pathways, vary within and between regions but there are common challenges that can be tackled by better integrated mitigation and adaptation actions. The actions described in this paper would have benefits for health if appropriately implemented, both by reducing the health risks of climate change and from the ancillary (co-)benefits of mitigation such as from reduced air pollution as a result of phasing out fossil fuels. There are unprecedented health threats from climate change but also unprecedented opportunities to use scientific knowledge to inform policy and practice. Much can be done now to use the evidence already available to effect rapid and decisive action as well as generating new evidence to support effective policy development and implementation. This paper draws on an inter-regional, inclusive, project by the InterAcademy Partnership, the global network of more than 140 academies of science, engineering and medicine, to summarise evidence available worldwide in order to help inform options for policy making. A particular focus is on clarifying climate change mitigation and adaptation solutions and their implementation for the benefit of the most vulnerable groups. The present authors actively participated in managing this project which encouraged academies to capture diverse impacts and policy options by evaluating and synthesising evidence from their own countries to inform policy for collective and customised action at national, regional and global levels. Using a systems-based approach, recommendations from the project in this publication are transdisciplinary and multisectoral. Despite the accumulating evidence, protecting and improving human health have not yet become major focal points in global climate change policy discussions. Drawing on the IAP project outputs, we strongly recommend that health and health equity must now come to the foreground, accompanied by much greater allocation of climate finance to health-related programmes. Wiley 2024-09 Article PeerReviewed Fears, Robin and Canales-Holzeis, Claudia and Caussy, Deoraj and Harper, Sherilee L. and Hoe, Victor Chee Wai and McNeil, Jeremy N. and Mogwitz, Johanna and ter Meulen, Volker and Haines, Andy (2024) Climate action for health: Inter-regional engagement to share knowledge to guide mitigation and adaptation actions. Global Policy, 15 (5, SI). pp. 75-96. ISSN 1758-5880, DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13210 <https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13210>. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13210 10.1111/1758-5899.13210
institution Universiti Malaya
building UM Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Malaya
content_source UM Research Repository
url_provider http://eprints.um.edu.my/
topic RA Public aspects of medicine
spellingShingle RA Public aspects of medicine
Fears, Robin
Canales-Holzeis, Claudia
Caussy, Deoraj
Harper, Sherilee L.
Hoe, Victor Chee Wai
McNeil, Jeremy N.
Mogwitz, Johanna
ter Meulen, Volker
Haines, Andy
Climate action for health: Inter-regional engagement to share knowledge to guide mitigation and adaptation actions
description Climate change, attributable to human activity, is increasingly contributing to a global health crisis. The scale, nature and timing of adverse effects on physical and mental health, via direct and indirect pathways, vary within and between regions but there are common challenges that can be tackled by better integrated mitigation and adaptation actions. The actions described in this paper would have benefits for health if appropriately implemented, both by reducing the health risks of climate change and from the ancillary (co-)benefits of mitigation such as from reduced air pollution as a result of phasing out fossil fuels. There are unprecedented health threats from climate change but also unprecedented opportunities to use scientific knowledge to inform policy and practice. Much can be done now to use the evidence already available to effect rapid and decisive action as well as generating new evidence to support effective policy development and implementation. This paper draws on an inter-regional, inclusive, project by the InterAcademy Partnership, the global network of more than 140 academies of science, engineering and medicine, to summarise evidence available worldwide in order to help inform options for policy making. A particular focus is on clarifying climate change mitigation and adaptation solutions and their implementation for the benefit of the most vulnerable groups. The present authors actively participated in managing this project which encouraged academies to capture diverse impacts and policy options by evaluating and synthesising evidence from their own countries to inform policy for collective and customised action at national, regional and global levels. Using a systems-based approach, recommendations from the project in this publication are transdisciplinary and multisectoral. Despite the accumulating evidence, protecting and improving human health have not yet become major focal points in global climate change policy discussions. Drawing on the IAP project outputs, we strongly recommend that health and health equity must now come to the foreground, accompanied by much greater allocation of climate finance to health-related programmes.
format Article
author Fears, Robin
Canales-Holzeis, Claudia
Caussy, Deoraj
Harper, Sherilee L.
Hoe, Victor Chee Wai
McNeil, Jeremy N.
Mogwitz, Johanna
ter Meulen, Volker
Haines, Andy
author_facet Fears, Robin
Canales-Holzeis, Claudia
Caussy, Deoraj
Harper, Sherilee L.
Hoe, Victor Chee Wai
McNeil, Jeremy N.
Mogwitz, Johanna
ter Meulen, Volker
Haines, Andy
author_sort Fears, Robin
title Climate action for health: Inter-regional engagement to share knowledge to guide mitigation and adaptation actions
title_short Climate action for health: Inter-regional engagement to share knowledge to guide mitigation and adaptation actions
title_full Climate action for health: Inter-regional engagement to share knowledge to guide mitigation and adaptation actions
title_fullStr Climate action for health: Inter-regional engagement to share knowledge to guide mitigation and adaptation actions
title_full_unstemmed Climate action for health: Inter-regional engagement to share knowledge to guide mitigation and adaptation actions
title_sort climate action for health: inter-regional engagement to share knowledge to guide mitigation and adaptation actions
publisher Wiley
publishDate 2024
url http://eprints.um.edu.my/47174/
https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.13210
_version_ 1819909895486439424
score 13.223943