The Public Health Institute (PHI) is pleased to release a Request for Applications for Creating a Climate for Health Pilot Projects.

With funding from the Kresge Foundation, PHI will support pilot projects in three geographically diverse, urban communities in California to demonstrate approaches to incorporate climate change into current public health program practice and/or to enhance public health participation in on-going local climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resilience work. Each grantee will be awarded $20,000 for 12 months of work within the state of California. The purpose of the pilot projects is to develop models that can be held up, scaled up, and replicated that simultaneously address climate change and community health and health equity. Projects can be new or complement existing projects.

The deadline for applications is July 1, 2013.

http://climatehealthconnect.org/ClimateHealth_PilotProjects_RFA

Since 2009, when the last attempt to enact comprehensive federal climate change legislation succumbed to a high-profile political failure, expensive and deadly natural disasters have refocused national attention on our changing climate. In his inaugural acceptance speech and his State of the Union address, President Obama devoted considerable attention to the issue. The U.S. Government Accountability Office recently identified climate change as a “significant financial risk for the federal government.” House Democrats have established the Safe Climate Caucus. And on last Thursday, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced the Climate Protection Act of 2013, a bill that would take a major step by imposing a fee on the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Sustained and serious federal policy-making to addressing climate change is good news for health; and those interested in health must help shape and push for climate policy.

Global: "Action on climate change crucial to water and food security, Ban stresses at UN event" 

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called again for urgent and concrete action on climate change, as high-level officials gathered at the United Nations to discuss the growing global concern over the impacts of the phenomenon on food and water security.

The Weekly Climate Change and Health News Roundup is your place for all the latest news on the health effects of climate change around the world.

North America: "Five Diseases on the Move in North America, Thanks to Climate Change" 

Some nasty diseases are making their mark on the U.S., possibly due to warmer temps and rising seas.

There are multiple pathways through which climate change may impact food safety, including: changes in temperature and precipitation patterns, increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, ocean warming and acidification, and changes in contaminants’ transport pathways among others. Climate change may also affect socio-economic aspects related to food systems such as agriculture, animal production, global trade, demographics and human behavior which all influence food safety and health.

"we are working towards a paradigm shift in recognizing the leadership of women in responding to the climate crisis."  Eleanor Blomstrom (WEDO)

This year the priority theme at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) has been the empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges.

Invitation to the “Confronting Climate Change and Extreme Weather: A Public Health Perspective” event on April 10th at UCLA 

 Please join us!

Friday, March 9, was the last day of the fifty-sixth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) which has brought together, in New York, leaders from all over the world working to promote gender equality. The CSW is the principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women.

California Governor Jerry Brown emphasized that we must make the investment required to address the challenges of climate change, at his December 15th conference in San Francisco on “Extreme Climate Risk and California’s Future.” Joined by climate change leaders and leaders from various other sectors including health, Governor Brown went on to say that the
longer it take us to reduce emissions, the higher the costs of
 adaptation and mitigation will be.

The Momentum for Change Initiative launch was one of the most interesting, down to earth events at the COP17 in Durban. The UN's Momentum for Change highlights innovative, replicable, on-the-ground projects that help to mitigate or adapt to climate change, while directly benefiting people.  Momentum for Change will identify and promote these “beacons of opportunity, pointing the direction towards fulfilling the objectives of the [UNFCCC] Convention.”