COP28: UAE Declaration on Climate and Health gets nod from 123 countries to address climate health crisis

Dubai: Over 120 countries have endorsed COP28 UAE Declaration on Climate and Health on Saturday, to accelerate actions to protect people’s health from growing climate impacts.

The COP28 Presidency joined with the World Health Organization and UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention, unveiled Declaration.

UAE Declaration on Climate and Health, seeks to increase cross-sector collaboration, reduce emissions in the health sector and increase climate-health financing.

The announcement comes as annual deaths from polluted air hit almost 9 million, heat-related illness and death on the rise, and as 189 million people are exposed to extreme weather-related events each year.

The Declaration is announced ahead of the first ever Health Day at a COP and joins a series of announcements made during the World Climate Action Summit to keep 1.5C within reach.

It acknowledges the large benefits to people’s health from stronger climate action, including by reducing air pollution and lowering health care costs.

The declaration was developed with the support of a number of ‘country champions’, including Brazil, Malawi, the UK, the US, the Netherlands, Kenya, Fiji, India, Egypt, Sierra Leone, and Germany.

This joint action comes as annual deaths from polluted air hit almost nine million and as 189 million people are exposed to extreme weather-related events each year.

Around USD 1 billion collectively committed by wide range of stakeholders including governments to address the growing needs of the climate-health crisis.

“The impacts of climate change are already at our door. They have become one of the greatest threats to human health in the 21st century. Governments have now rightly recognized health as a crucial element of climate action,” said COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber.

He continued “the Declaration sends a strong signal that we must reduce global emissions and work together to strengthen our health systems”.

“The climate crisis is a health crisis, but for too long, health has been a footnote in climate discussions,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, World Health Organization.

“WHO thanks the UAE for making health a key priority in its COP28 Presidency, and welcomes this declaration, which emphasizes the need to build climate-resilient and low-carbon health systems, to protect the health of both planet and people.”

“Climate change is increasingly impacting the health and wellbeing of our communities,” said Lazarus Chakwera, President of Malawi – one of the first countries to endorse the Declaration.