Top experts address Commonwealth Health Ministers Meeting

Climate change and lack of access to clean energy, especially for the world’s poorest people, are among the greatest challenges for public health, Professor Sir Andy Haines, Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said yesterday (Sunday, 17 May 2009).

Professor Haines, the keynote speaker at this year’s Commonwealth Health Ministers Meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, said that solutions to tackling them do exist but required political will to implement them.

He stressed that human health would benefit considerably from actions to reduce greenhouse gases, through changes such as improved air quality, diet and exercise.

Professor Haines emphasised that despite the current economic crisis, the benefits of taking action to limit climate change and to sustainably manage ecosystems far exceed the cumulative costs of inaction.

He also stressed a “radical shift in technologies and resource efficiency” was needed.

Sunday’s meeting, which took place on the eve of the World Health Assembly, was attended by 43 Commonwealth member countries and the Cook Islands.

The meeting was also addressed by Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, who highlighted the need for countries to strengthen their health systems to cope with both short-term and long-term health threats.

Dr Chan said that climate change is a global phenomenon, but its effects and impacts are not equal. “In Africa, ten years from now, crop yields will be down by 50 per cent and 250 million Africans are going to be affected by water shortage,” she told delegates.

Earlier, Professor Tony McMichael, Director of the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University in Canberra, detailed the likely implications of global temperature rises such as an increase in extreme events, sea-level rise, infectious diseases and lower food yields.

“The health sector has both science and moral weight on its side: attaining, maintaining and sustaining the population’s health is society’s great bottom-line,” Professor McMichael said.

He told ministers that countries needed to assess the health risks from climate change; develop and evaluate adaption strategies; assess the impacts of adaptation and mitigation actions; and develop decision-making support tools for this. There was also a need to assess financial cost and resource needs.

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