The Global Climate and Health Alliance (GCHA) slammed the COP28 Summit for failing to commit to a thorough fossil fuel phase-out, which is essential for public health. Concerns include the lack of fossil fuel phase-out consensus and adaptation targets.
As COP28 ended in Dubai, the health community praised accords in the result language that some countries said ended the fossil fuel era. The GCHA, a consortium of over 160 health professional and health civil society organizations and networks from around the world addressing climate change, criticized the summit’s failure to commit to a full phase-out of fossil fuels, a critically urgent step for protecting people’s health, in a media release.
Concerns about the failure to commit to significant adaptation targets, crucial for constructing resilient systems to safeguard vulnerable populations, were compounded by the fossil fuel phase-out disagreement. GCHA Executive Director Jeni Miller remarked, “Signals alone are not enough – only real action to phase out fossil fuels will protect people’s health”.
Despite these concerns, the health community hailed signs of the end of the fossil fuel age as a positive milestone. The COP28 Climate and Health Declaration, signed by 142 countries, the inaugural Health Day at COP, and an InterMinisterial meeting on climate and health with nearly 50 Ministers of Health and 110 high-level health ministerial staff attended for the first time raised the focus on people’s health at COP28.
The greatest injustice of our time spanning generations is climate change. A health day at COP28 is a major advance. World leaders’ purposeful decision to omit a speedy and just fossil fuel phase out from the decision language clearly prioritizes profit over the health of marginalized people, particularly children and youth, worldwide. Continuing fossil fuel extraction increases health risks and human rights violations for the most marginalized “Said Amiteshwar Singh, co-founder of the Youth Climate and Health Network, and Giulia Gasparri, project officer at PMNCH. With over 1,300 partner organizations, PMNCH is the world’s biggest alliance for women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health and well-being hosted by the WHO.
Over 1900 health sector delegates attended COP this year, boosting efforts to prioritize people’s lives and well-being in climate choices. “While COP28 made progress, the failure to find consensus on a full and fair phase out of fossil fuels is deeply problematic when people’s health and lives hang in the balance – with the highest price being paid by communities who have contributed least to the problem”, said Global Climate and Health Alliance Executive Director Jeni Miller. “This year we saw superstorms, floods, heatwaves, droughts and wildfires, yet with the severe toll climate impacts are already taking on people’s health and health systems, it is disheartening that world leaders still could not align themselves on the obvious and urgent need for fossil fuel phase out” , Miller said. “It is also worrying that developed countries held back from recognising their responsibility to reduce emissions first and fastest, or from making clear and measurable commitments to support the most impacted countries to adapt, with adequate finance to support implementation.”
“Compromise may be a part of international negotiations, but childrens’ developing lungs, brains and bodies will not know what was achieved at COP28, if it does not drive the most rapid of transitions away from fossil fuels, and support their communities to adapt to the impacts that we are already experiencing” Miller. “If air pollution and drought keep food scarce, today’s results won’t matter. Such small initiatives toward decreasing drivers or protecting against climate change will not be celebrated by pregnant women whose nearest clinic was damaged by flooding.
“As delegates leave Dubai, developed countries must address the needs of the most vulnerable, and lead us towards equitably delivering the end of the fossil fuel era; and this leadership must put any countries hoping to cling to a fossil fuel future on notice that indeed this era is at an end” , said Miller.
Climate change and health implications are driven by fossil fuels, which pose health risks from extraction to combustion. “The COP28 final text clearly signals the end of the fossil fuel era by naming the need to end fossil fuel dependence for the first time in 30 years, but it leaves dangerous loopholes like carbon capture and storage, ‘transitional fuels’ like fossil gas, and nuclear power, and does not commit to a full, fair, or funded fossil fuel phase out. Current adaption and finance terminology leaves vulnerable people unprotected and risks renewing debt, disease, and death cycles. The COP28 final wording mentions the human right to health and a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment but does not guarantee them “, stated Global Climate and Health Alliance Policy Lead Jess Beagley.
Conclusion
The Global Climate and Health Alliance (GCHA), a coalition of 160 health professionals and civil society organizations, attacked the COP28 meeting for failing to commit to a thorough fossil fuel phase-out, which is essential for public health. The lack of unanimity on fossil fuel phase-out raises worries about the failure to commit to significant adaptation targets, necessary for resilient systems that safeguard vulnerable populations.
Despite these concerns, the health community hailed signs of the end of the fossil fuel age as a positive milestone. At COP28, the COP28 Climate and Health Declaration, signed by 142 countries, the inaugural Health Day, and an InterMinisterial discussion on climate and health raised awareness of people’s health.
The health community thinks that world leaders’ purposeful decision to omit a speedy and just fossil fuel phase out from the decision language clearly prioritizes profit above vulnerable people, particularly children and youth, worldwide. Continuing fossil fuel extraction increases health risks and human rights violations for underprivileged groups.
In order to exit the fossil fuel age fairly, developed nations must help the most vulnerable. Fossil fuels are the main cause of climate change and its health effects, and their extraction and burning pose additional risks.
The COP28 final wording indicates the end of the fossil fuel era, yet carbon capture and storage, transitional fuels like natural gas, and nuclear power remain dangerously unresolved. Current adaptation and finance language risks damaging vulnerable people and repeating debt, disease, and death cycles.
