7th Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health of WHO puts forward an ambitious vision. Now it’s time for action.
The climate crisis is among the most urgent challenges we face today, and its impact on planetary health places our own health at risk. It is more urgent than ever to find collaborative solutions to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change in ways that promote and protect everyone’s health and wellbeing and create a just transition that leaves no one behind.
As part of the WHO European Environment and Health Process, the Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health brings together health and environment ministries from 53 countries in the WHO European region once every five years. The 7th WHO Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health, organised in Budapest, came at a crucial time to reflect on how we can achieve a healthy recovery in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the worsening of the climate crisis, which has major and unequal health impacts, felt in particular by the most vulnerable communities.
The conference saw the adoption of the Budapest Declaration, a commitment by Member States to take action on health challenges related to the triple threat of climate change, environmental pollution and biodiversity loss. The declaration affirms countries’ pledge to accelerate the just transition towards resilient, healthy, equitable and sustainable societies through a series of actions. These actions are detailed in a “Roadmap for healthier people, a thriving planet and a sustainable future 2023–2030”.
While the Declaration and associated Roadmap are ambitious, they do not set out concrete initiatives and an associate timeline to bridge the gap between commitments and actions. In addition, the Declaration insufficiently recognises the importance of promoting healthy, sustainable food as a key factor of a just and green transition.
Empowering sustainability champions in the healthcare sector
The Budapest Declaration acknowledges the important role of the health workforce in driving the needed change. It calls on Member States to strengthen the climate literacy of health professionals, and to provide them with “adequate mandates, knowledge and tools to address the environmental and climate threats to health and promote the societal benefits of healthy environments”.
In line with this, the EuroHealthNet Partnership organised a session during the conference on ‘Enabling health professionals and health policymakers to become sustainability champions’. The session gathered experts from across European countries to explore what tools and resources are needed to support health professionals to contribute to a just green transition.
“Health professionals are invaluable allies in ensuring more sustainable and health-promoting practices within and beyond health systems. It is critical that policies and structures provide them with the support and resources that they need and help scale-up good practices. The BeWell project, in which EuroHealthNet is a partner, is developing a green and digital skills strategy for the health workforce to adapt to challenges and presenting a united approach across Europe.”
Caroline Costongs
Director of EuroHealthNet
Clear calls for action from the session include:
- As a trusted voice in the community, health professionals – from nurses to community doctors to health authorities – can be strong sustainability champions.
- Small changes and scaled evidence-based practices across the healthcare sector can create an equally big impact as large changes made by a few
- The burden of responsibility should not be placed on already over-stretched healthcare workers. Instead, policymakers need to create environments that facilitate and enable sustainable ways of working without creating ‘climate fatigue’ in the healthcare workplace.
- There is a need to update medical curricula to train the next generation of healthcare workers, who expect sustainability to be a fundamental value of the healthcare system
- One of the most sustainable acts a healthcare professional can champion is health promotion and disease prevention. Reducing the burden of disease will reduce the environmental impact of healthcare systems, especially as the European population rapidly ages.
- Communication matters – we need to change the language and images we use in order to see health systems through a sustainability lens.
EuroHealthNet as an accredited non-state actor at WHO Europe further contributed to key discussions around health equity and sustainable development. Under its Memorandum of Understanding it works with WHO/Europe on a number of activities, including on environment and climate change.
EuroHealthNet looks forward to contributing to ensure that the takeaways from this conference transform into concrete actions. It is ready to work with all actors committed to fighting the climate crisis and protecting our public and planetary health.
