Health in the Green Economy
WHO briefing to countries on Rio+20
The big countdown is beginning. In less than 30 days the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development kicks off in Brazil, marking 20 years since the first Rio "Earth Summit".
Health was a cornerstone of the first RIO conference in 1992, and health needs to be at the heart of Rio+20 and the follow-up. Here are three key ways in which health can both contribute to, and benefit from, greener and cleaner development:
• Better health contributes to sustainable development - simply because healthy people are better able to learn, earn and contribute positively to their societies. Protecting people from catastrophic health expenditures, through universal health coverage, can help people fight disease, fight poverty, and stay healthy. Reducing inequities related to gender, employment and housing opportunities helps make people healthier as well.
• Sustainable development can also generate large health benefits - providing strategies are designed with health in mind. WHO estimates that reductions in air, water and chemical pollution can prevent up to one quarter of deaths and disease annually across the world, and even more in developing countries.
• Measuring progress in sustainable development also means measuring health progress. If air pollution is reduced, for instance, then chronic respiratory and cardiovascular disease will decline. If water systems are safe and climate resilient, waterborne disease will be reduced.
"Green economy" is a key Rio+20 theme. WHO's Health in Green Economy series is systematically exploring how health can benefit from greener development.
Read more...
- More about Rio+20 process and health sector inputs.
- WHO's submission to the UNCSD Rio+20 "The Future We Want" outcome document.
Policy Briefings: Health Co-Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation
The policy briefings below summarise initial key findings from this project and identify expected health impacts from policies to mitigate climate change in the housing (English/Spanish), transport (English/Spanish), household energy in developing countries (English/Spanish) and the health sector (English/Spanish)
WHO's Health in the Green Economy series, is reviewing the evidence about expected health impacts of greenhouse gas mitigation strategies in key economic sectors as considered in the Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007 (IPCC). The review highlights the fact that many strategies to reduce climate change have large, immediate health benefits. Others may pose health risks or tradeoffs. Examined systematically, a powerful new dimension of measures to address climate change emerges. The aim is to propose important health co-benefits for sector and health policy-makers, and for consideration in the next round of IPCC mitigation reviews (Fifth Assessment Report [AR5]).
