As climate negotiations continue in the Amazonian city of Belém, Brazil, governments, United Nations agencies and partners have adopted the Belém Health Action Plan, placing an emphasis on addressing inequalities in healthcare.
For updates on all the action and PakGazette coverage so far, head to our dedicated page here.
A planet heading towards ‘intensive care’
The adoption took place on the COP-designated Health Day, a recognition that the climate crisis is also a health crisis.
“If our planet were a patient, it would be admitted to intensive care,” warned the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on the eve of the conference.
Extreme heat, floods, droughts and storms are not just environmental threats: they are causing disease outbreaks, food and water insecurity and the disruption of essential health services.
A midwife from a UNFPA mobile health clinic assesses a pregnant woman in a displaced persons camp in Marib, Yemen.
Plan for resilience
Developed by WHO, the United Nations University (UNU) and other UN partners in collaboration with the Brazilian government, the Action Plan sets out practical steps to integrate health into climate strategies.
- Strengthening health systems to resist climate shocks
- Mobilize finance and technology for adaptation and
- Ensure communities have a voicepromoting their participation in governance.
Brazilian Health Minister Alexandre Padilha described the launch as “a crucial moment to demonstrate the strength of the health sector in global climate action.”
Civil society demonstration at COP30
Solution Center
Thursday’s high-level sessions in the main conference halls are dominated by speeches and debates on climate and health, but during COP30, the WHO-led Health Pavilion has been the center of solutions and dialogue.
Topics covered in the pavilion range from artificial intelligence to waste management, employment, education and human rights, all from a health perspective.
Friday at the pavilion will be dedicated to the Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate and Health, a WHO-led initiative to accelerate the transition to low-carbon, climate-resilient health systems.
Progress in food waste
Also today, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and its partners launched an initiative to reduce food waste by half by 2030 and reduce up to seven percent of methane emissions as part of efforts to curb climate change.
UNEP notes that the world wastes more than one billion tons of food each year, contributing up to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and accounting for up to 14 percent of methane emissions, which is a short-lived climate pollutant that is 84 times more potent in warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over 20 years.
Funded by the Global Environment Facility, the United Nations Environment Program will launch a four-year, $3 million global project to implement food waste progress goals.
