A Civil Society Event on Action in Climate Change and Health

Event Summary

When: 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m., Monday, September 22, 2014

Where: Grand Hyatt, New York, New York

Why: Climate change is already having real impacts on people’s health and people’s lives. Stressing the urgency of action, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has invited world leaders to Climate Summit 2014 to catalyze governments, industry and civil society worldwide toward substantial commitments for a low-carbon economy to mitigate climate change. In advance of this meeting, the Public Health Institute with other co-hosting organizations has organized a Civil Society Event on Action in Climate Change and Health. The event is a part of Climate Week NYC 2014.

For more information: http://climatehealth-sideevent.org/wordpress/program/

Learn more about PHI’s work on climate change at PHI’s Center for Climate Change & Health.

About the Event

To support the goals of UN Climate Summit, Public Health Institute is partnering with the Global Climate and Health Alliance, the American College of Sports Medicine and the University of Wisconsin-Madison to convene a civil society event on the intersection of climate change and health.

The conference will focus on the health benefits of climate mitigation and the pathway towards a sustainable and healthy future. Dr. Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, will lead a dynamic program engaging thought leaders at the intersection of climate change and health across multiple sectors, including food and agriculture, transportation and community design, and energy and air pollution.

The event will include a significant media announcement. By invitation, 130 attendees are expected at the New York venue. The event will be videotaped to share via the web.

Energy, transportation and land use, and agriculture together contribute one half to three fourths of all greenhouse gas emissions globally, while mitigation strategies in all three offer substantial opportunities to benefit health.

Air pollution now kills 7 million people annually, and non-communicable diseases, many rooted in poor nutrition and lack of physical activity, are the leading cause of death worldwide. Addressing climate change in the right ways improves health, creating cleaner air, more active and connected communities, and healthier, more sustainable food systems. Together we can make this happen.

Like the Summit itself, the Civil Society Event on Action in Climate Change and Health will build momentum for the 2014 and 2015 U.N. Climate Change Conferences, will support national climate change action, and will inform the U.N. post-2015 development agenda conversations currently underway. By focusing on health in our strategies to mitigate climate change, we have the opportunity to create healthier, more equitable and more vibrant communities throughout the world.

Featured Speakers

In a series of presentations and panel discussions, a distinctive group of thought leaders will discuss the intersection of climate change and health, and opportunities for health in key climate strategies. The speakers include:

• RADM Boris Lushniak, Acting U.S. Surgeon General
• Gina McCarthy, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• Dr. Maria Neira, Director, Public Health and the Environment Department, World Health Organization
• Carlos Dora, M.D., Ph.D., Health policy expert with the World Health Organization
• Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet
• John M. Balbus, M.D., M.P.H., Senior Advisor for Public Health to the Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
• Andy Clarke, President, League of American Bicyclists
• Alessandro Demaio, M.D., Global Health Fellow in Non-Communicable Diseases, Harvard Medical School and Copenhagen School of Global Health
• Sir Andy Haines, Professor of Public Health and Primary Care at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
• Genon Jensen, Executive Director, Health and Environment Alliance
• Josh Karliner, Director of Global Projects , Health Care Without Harm
• Jacqueline Patterson, Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program
• Jonathan Patz, Professor & Director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
• Janet Walberg Rankin, Ph.D.. Professor, Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise at Virginia Tech and Founder, ActivEarth initiative
• Linda Rudolph, M.D., MPH, Co-Director, Center for Climate Change & Health, Public Health Institute
• James F. Sallis, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Family and Preventive Medicine at University of California, San Diego and Director of Active Living Research, a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• Gunhild Stordalen, Co-founder & Chair of Stordalen Foundation and CEO of GreeNudge
• Asterio Takesy, Ambassador, Federated States of Micronesia
• Jeffrey E. Thompson, M.D., Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Boards, and pediatric intensivist and neonatologist at Gundersen Health System
• Cristina Tirado, Chair, International Union of Nutritional Sciences’ Task Force for Climate and Nutrition