The Sustainable Healthcare Coalition has joined nearly 450 organisations and 3,500 individuals by signing the #HealthyClimate Presciption letter.

The letter is an urgent call for climate action from the health community aimed at world leaders heading to the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow in November 2021. COP26 is the first UN global climate summit since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. With health dominating the political agenda, the health community has an opportunity to make a difference to the negotiations if we raise our voices together.

Doctors, nurses, paramedics, allied health workers and other health workers have worked tirelessly to save lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, and we do not want a future filled with successive, spiralling health crises. Together, we call on the leaders of every country and their representatives at COP26 to avert the impending health catastrophe by limiting global warming to 1.5°C, and to make human health and equity central to all climate change mitigation and adaptation actions.

The UN Secretary-General has called the most recent scientific report on climate change from the IPCC a “code red for humanity”. The actions called for in the #Healthy Climate Presciption letter — which are necessary although not sufficient to fully address the climate and health crises — will go a long way toward protecting people worldwide and to responding to the “code red for humanity”.

#HealthyClimate Presciption letter.