EuroHealthNet provides feedback on European Climate Pact
The European Climate Pact is one of the initiatives launched by the Commission in March 2020 as part of the European Green Deal. It aims to engage citizens and communities at local, regional and national level in the transition to climate-neutrality, including civil society, research organisations, educational institutions, the private sector, consumer groups and individuals. Concretely, the Climate Pact will seek to build on existing initiatives, and encourage societal engagement through three main activity strands: talking about climate change; triggering action; and working together.
EuroHealthNet provided input into the public consultation, helping to shape the final version of the Pact (which is non-legislative). This served for instance to highlight the kinds and sources of information which would be most useful to help trigger action and raise awareness on climate change. Currently, the Commission proposes to focus the Pact on three areas: energy efficiency, low-carbon mobility, and planting trees/green urban areas. Whilst underlining the importance of each of these activities, EuroHealthNet also drew attention to the fact that climate, health and inequalities are strongly interlinked. It indicated its willingness to provide targeted support to foster actions aimed at addressing climate change and environmental degradation, whilst improving health and reducing health inequalities, building on the learnings of the Horizon 2020 INHERIT initiative.