Health implications of loss and damage: impacts, responses and the role of the UNFCCC L&D mechanism?

 

Date: 6th October 2022 2.30pm – 3.45pm BST (3.30pm – 4.45pm Europe; 9.30am-10.45am EST)

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‘Climate-related illnesses, premature deaths, malnutrition in all its forms, and threats to mental health and well-being are increasing.’ IPCC AR6 WGII, 

Loss of health and risk to life are considered a ‘non-economic loss and damage’, but the personal impacts and very real economic costs to the people and countries it affects are extreme. Health loss and damage may be caused by direct impact of extreme weather including typhoons or extreme heat, and access to health care services can be severely limited when climate disasters strike. Across the world vector borne disease such as malaria or tsetse are migrating to new areas, impacting new populations. There are physical and mental health outcomes of climate induced migration, and an increase in malnutrition or lack of fresh water in areas where drought strikes year on year. 

As pressure mounts for COP27 in Sharm el Sheikh to deliver a strong outcome on L&D, how should climate loss and damage to health and life be put at the centre of these discussion?

This webinar will present current examples of the real threats of climate induced health loss and damage, and its impacts on communities and countries. It will explore means of predicting, limiting, or preventing health loss and damages, and how health professionals should respond to climate disasters. Finally, we will discuss how the UNFCCC Warsaw mechanism on L&D should best account for health loss and damages, and why finance for L&D is essential for health measures for impacted communities. 

Speakers will include:

  • Taylor Dimsdale, on health in the context of climate risk, E3G
  • Maria Guevara, MSF on humanitarian health responses to climate L&D
  • Colin McQuistan, Practical Action on the UNFCCC WIM
  • Elizabeth Willetts, World Health Organisation 

Please check the event recording here:

Use the password: eB!Op9%7