Dear attendees of the Virtual Skoll World Forum session on Coronavirus and the Climate Crisis,
While the health care community around the world is still fighting a frontline battle to thwart the coronavirus, many are also turning their attention to focus on the future and asking: how do we ensure a healthy, socially just recovery?
To keep the conversation we began in March going, we are providing you with a short list of resources that attempt to address this thorny topic.
While there are intertwined social, ecological, economic and political aspects to the issue, the resources below focus specifically on one component of the response: health community proposals for a world based on equity, resilience and climate justice.
In addition, while communities all over the world are suffering the compound impacts of COVID-19, climate change, racism, inequality and other forms of discrimination, we also want to recognize the challenges of the current moment in the United States, where the Skoll Foundation is based and where Health Care Without Harm has a major presence. To do so we are sharing two additional resources: the perspective of Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative and a Skoll Awardee, together with a brief solidarity statement from the Health Care Without Harm team in the U.S.
We hope you find these resources useful during these difficult times,
Josh Karliner
Health Care Without Harm
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On May 26, a letter endorsed by organizations representing more than 40 million health professionals was sent to the G-20 leaders and released to the media. The letter urges G-20 governments to “make major reforms to current fossil fuel subsidies, shifting the majority towards the production of clean, renewable energy” in order to power a healthy economic recovery.
Organized by the Global Climate and Health Alliance (GCHA), the World Health Organization and Every Breath Matters (part of Cristiana Figueres’ Mission 2020), the letter is still open for endorsement by health professionals and their organizations. You can find a link to the invitation and the letter here.
Following on the World Health Assembly, which brought together ministers of health from every country to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic, and in conjunction with the letter from 40 million health professionals, the World Health Organization issued a manifesto on a healthy recovery that calls for action on six fronts:
- Protect and preserve the source of human health: Nature.
- Invest in essential services, from water and sanitation to clean energy in healthcare facilities.
- Ensure a quick healthy energy transition.
- Promote healthy, sustainable food systems.
- Build healthy, liveable cities.
- Stop using taxpayers money to fund pollution.
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This U.S.-focused webinar features speakers Denise Fairchild (Emerald Cities Collaborative), Helga Garcia-Garza (Agri-Cultura Network), and Jon E. Utech (Cleveland Clinic), discussed the different dimensions of community resilience as well as health care’s essential role in creating solutions. The May 27 session was moderated by Gary Cohen, Health Care Without Harm President, who also moderated the Virtual Skoll World Forum session on Coronavirus and the climate crisis.
In a first-of-its-kind webinar, doctors across regions and specialities in India came together on May 23 to build a strong health sector response to ensure clean air as India begins to reopen. Titled Air Pollution and COVID-19: Strategies for health experts to engage on air pollution post relaxation of COVID-19 lockdown in India, this webinar was hosted by Health Care Without Harm’s partners in India. Dr. Arvind Kumar, who participated in the Virtual Skoll World Forum session on Coronavirus and the climate crisis was one of the speakers in this session.
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P.S. For all these resources and more you can also visit Health Care Without Harm’s Coronavirus Resource Center
You’re receiving this email because you were one of the nearly 1,500 people who registered for the Virtual Skoll World Forum session, Coronavirus and the climate crisis: Mobilizing health for common solutions, which took place on March 31.
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