EU has no plan for rising climate-related deaths, scientists warn

With temperatures in Europe rising faster than anywhere else and no rapid wind down of lethal burning of fossil fuels in sight, public health leaders are trying to push the crisis to the top of the policy agenda.

Caroline Costongs, director of NGO EuroHealthNet, an alliance of public health authorities and institutes, urged the EU to deliver a climate and health strategy, during and event on Wednesday.

The climate crisis is a “cross-border threat to public health,” she said, calling for an EU strategy tying climate and health policies together. “This includes climate crisis preparedness, improving living environments, housing, transport, food, greening health systems, and climate justice.”

Research into the climate crisis’ deadly threat to human health is underway but it’s not enough, Costongs, told the audience at one of the NGO’s flagship events. The European Commission’s latest plan to fund new research to mitigate climate threats to health is “very important for the data, but not for the action,” Costongs said.

The NGO wants to see climate and health priorities embedded across all EU policies, including the Commission’s forthcoming Affordable Housing Plan and Anti-Poverty Strategy, Costongs said.

The event, hosted by Spain, featured high-profile speakers from the European Commission and national health authorities, who outlined their departments’ efforts to tackle what a top Spanish health official said was the “biggest 21st century health threat that we have.”