Statement made at the 156th session of the WHO Executive Board on 7 February 2025
Honourable Chair, Distinguished Delegates,
Five of the organisations supporting this statement - FDI, FIP, ICN, WMA and World Physiotherapy - are part of the World Health Professions Alliance, representing over 41 million health professionals globally, and have a Memorandum of Understanding with WHO.
Climate change is a pressing global health emergency, threatening health and well-being of communities worldwide. We commend the WHO on the timely and inclusive development of the draft Global Action Plan on Climate Change and Health, which highlights the urgency for transformative action.
We welcome the strong focus on integrating climate and health policy across sectors, emphasizing a holistic approach that places human well-being at the center of climate action. To strengthen this plan, we propose the following recommendations:
- Include health professionals and civil society in the development, implementation, and evaluation of climate-health strategies. Health professionals, as frontline witnesses to the impacts of climate change, are essential to ensuring effective action.
- Prioritize strong guidance on resilient healthcare systems, particularly in small island developing states and low- and middle-income countries.
- Share evidence-based guidance and good practices to reduce carbon footprints and emission rates in the health sector, taking care to prevent commercial and vested interests from undermining public health objectives.
- Encourage further inter- and multisectoral cooperation to ensure that addressing climate and health becomes a whole-of-society effort.
- Promote public and health sector awareness of the linkages between climate and health, and strengthen research and development on climate-sensitive health threats and health service provision, ensuring equitable access and climate justice for vulnerable communities.
- Establish an ambitious monitoring framework for the Action Plan with clear targets, timelines, and indicators to track progress.
In 2024, Member States united behind the Resolution on climate change and health. Now, it is time to implement these shared ambitions. Urgent mitigation, including phasing out fossil fuels, is critical to reducing the health burden of climate-related infectious and non-communicable diseases and protecting future generations.
Let us seize this opportunity to ensure the Global Action Plan translates into meaningful progress for health and equity.
Constituency statement made on behalf of:
- FDI World Dental Federation
- International Council of Nurses
- International Pharmaceutical Federation
- World Medical Association
- World Confederation of Physical Therapy (World Physiotherapy)
- International Federation of Biomedical Laboratory Science (IFBLS)
- World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists