Be-cause health est la plateforme mondiale dédiée à la santé qui met en relation des organisations et des experts au niveau belge et international, et qui encourage la collaboration.
Climate Justice and Health Equity
While the world struggles with the COVID-19 pandemic, the accelerating health crisis, induced by the climate emergency, requires our even more urgent attention. No community – much more so for a poor than a rich one – is immune from the health impacts of climate change. People around the world face increasing extremes of heat, food and water insecurity, and changing patterns of infectious and chronic diseases. Unless urgent action is taken, the health impact of the climate emergency will bring disruption, threaten lives and livelihoods and compromise the health systems we depend on.
The COVID-19 pandemic and climate emergency represent converging crises. At the same time, climate emergency and epidemiological changes share common drivers. It is imperative that these emergencies are addressed in a comprehensive manner, while acknowledging public health needs, inequalities and historic injustices.
The 2021 Be-cause health conference, ‘Climate Justice and Health Equity’, looked into the interlinkages between climate change and disease trends and underlying causes, with a focus on public health impacts in LMICs, and explored possibilities to mitigate and adapt to the pending emergency. It looked in detail to the pathways and interrelations through which the climate emergency may impact health outcomes.
During the conference, global health organisations and health workers discussed how to address the climate emergency in their health activities and programmes. Moreover, participants learned and exchanged information on how transformation could be enabled given that an urgent shift to a circular and socially just economic system, that respects the planetary boundaries, is required.
Participant contributions from their different fields of experience and disciplines took advantage of recent advances in climate sciences, technologies and services as well as lessons learnt from communities affected by extreme weather events and climate variations. The conference was a window of opportunity for the health sector to adjust its universal coverage strategies as climate emergencies affect vulnerable population groups most.
Summary of the conference
Be-cause health international online conference 2021 (Carbon value approximately 450 g CO2eq/h: news.mit.edu/.. and energy, materials, waste and transportation via tool My Climate (identical estimate as 2019).
The participants were welcomed and introduced to the programme by Magalie Schotte, the coordinator of Be-cause health. An opening testimony was given by youngster Bob Matovu, one of the driving forces of Fridays for the future Uganda.
How does climate change impact people's health, and how do we as humans need a healthy planet to be healthy ourselves?
The conference on Climate Justice and Health Equity, one of the first events in Belgium to bring together a diversity of stakeholders to share experiences and build knowledge on this topic, was not an end, but a beginning. A Be-cause health Planetary Health working group emerged from the lessons learnt during the conference.
The conference was a great opportunity to get to know each other better and to connect. These connections present the beginning of a network of professionals who share with each other, learn from each other, and embrace diversity to find innovative ideas. Due to the complexity and relevance of the climate crisis and the environmental degradation impact on health at global and local levels, transdisciplinary networks are a fruitful mechanism for understanding and tackling the multiple effects of such web of phenomena.
The working group will thus take forward the key outcomes of the conference and develop a range of activities that will focus on the climate emergency, transformation and how global health stakeholders could contribute to this. The working groups ultimate goal is contributing to climate justice and health equity. In line with Be-cause health principles of social protection and equitable access to good quality responsive health services for all, and strong, resilient and sustainable health systems, this working group aims to create a space for technical exchange and to facilitate joint initiatives.
The working group wishes to be positioned as the central Belgian climate and health network, promoting meaningful participation of a diverse range of stakeholders from Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs) and underrepresented and marginalised voices.
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