Environmental breakdown is the single most important political and geostrategic issue of the decade, if not of the century. Changes to natural life support systems are already impacting our health and are projected to drive the majority of the global burden of disease over the coming century, hitting today’s most vulnerable and future generations the hardest. And though the average global citizen’s health has improved over the past century, the health of our planet has sharply declined — putting historically recent, and fragile, public health gains at risk.
With the first ever Health Day taking place at COP28 this year, and an increasing number of health organisations and institutions that look at the crossover between both fields, Global Health Advocates wanted to understand what are the most concrete and impactful policy and funding synergies that could help move the climate and health agendas hand in hand.
For our 4th series of the year and in the run-up to the COP28, we interviewed 3 different types of stakeholders from the research world, civil society and from a governmental body, looking at synergies that already exist and can be reinforced, as well as opportunities lying ahead to practically get out of our sectoral silos.
- Dr. Meseret Zelalem Tadesse, Lead Executive Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health at the Ministry of Health of Ethiopia
- Marco Schäferhoff, PhD, Managing Director at Open Consultants
- Jessica Beagley, Policy expert in health, environment and climate change at The Global Climate and Health Alliance
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