The next 10 years are a crucial decade for the world. Ecological grief and anxiety over current losses or anticipated future change are a sign of relationship with, or connection to, the natural world. What is needed are accessible and safe spaces to explore these difficult emotional reactions and the political will to ensure that important strategies and supports are funded.
Recently, organizations representing 40 million healthcare workers worldwide — two-thirds
of the global workforce — supported an open letter addressed to G20 leaders, calling upon
them to create a green and healthy recovery in order to support people through COVID-19
and its economic fallout, and prevent further crises related to climate change and planetary
decline.
This report represents a Made-in-Canada set of recommendations based on this call to action.
Framing climate change in terms of health has been shown to generate hopeful emotions, and nurses and doctors are some of society’s most trusted messengers. Integrating health into the dialogue may be the best way to create a narrative that unifies populations around a shared desire for a healthy response to climate change.
Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century,
1 and tackling it could be our greatest health opportunity.2
Abstract Climate change presents a clear and present danger to human health. Health impacts are already being demonstrated in Canada, which is warming at roughly twice the global rate. A recent United Nations Environment Emissions Gap Report noted that if countries maintain current emission efforts, emissions will exceed the targets laid out in the Paris
The health impacts of climate change demand an urgent response, with unmitigated warming threatening to undermine health systems and core global health objectives.
This briefing, launched in parallel with the 2018 Lancet Countdown report, focuses on the links between health and climate change, and their implications for the UK’s Government, public sector, businesses, and citizens.
The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) took an historic stand Aug. 26 when general council delegates agreed to divest CMA of its holdings in fossil-fuel companies.
