France: The upcoming United Nations climate summit, known as COP28, will mark the first time that health issues will be given in-depth consideration. Global health ministers will convene to discuss the consequences of the climate crisis on wellbeing.

The COP28 President Mr. Sultan Al Jaber, announced that the summit will be the first to dedicate a day to health and host a health and climate ministerial. The definition of adaptation will also be broadened to enhance global climate resilience, transform food systems, and improve forestry land use and water management.

The climate crisis is expected to increase the burden on already stretched global health systems, with doctors facing the consequences of climate disasters such as heatwaves, floods, and droughts, as well as the increased stress on patients from rising temperatures and disease vectors such as mosquitoes.

Ministers from around the world are currently gathered in Berlin for the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, where Mr. Al Jaber pledged to use COP28 to achieve the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement.

Mr. Al Jaber told ministers at the Petersberg dialogue that “the most recent IPCC report has already made it crystal clear that we are way off track. This is a moment of clarity that we must face with total honesty. We are already seeing the impacts, from rising sea levels to failed harvests, to food, water and energy insecurity. Everyone is affected and the most vulnerable communities, across the global south, who have done the least to cause climate change, are the most affected.”

The summit will also include the first formal assessment of progress since Paris, called the global stocktake, which is likely to reveal that most countries are falling short of the greenhouse gas cuts required to limit global temperature increases to 1.5C, the more stringent of the two Paris agreement goals.

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