Live. COP28: UN climate conference kicks off first day centred on health and peace - Euronews

COP28: UN climate conference kicks off first day centred on health and peace | Euronews
Rosie Frost

After two days of the World Climate Action Summit, today sees the first of the thematic days at COP28.

Welcome to our coverage of COP28 from Dubai. Stay tuned for the latest updates from the UN climate conference.

Why has COP never had a Health Day before?

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said today couldn't come soon enough, calling the threats to health from climate change were “immediate and present.”

“Although the climate crisis is a health crisis, it’s well overdue that 27 COPs have been and gone without a serious discussion of health,” he said. “Undoubtedly, health stands as the most compelling reason for taking climate action.”

John Kerry, the US climate envoy, said it was “astonishing” to him that it’s taken so long for health to become a centerpiece of the climate discussion.

“Our bodies are ecosystems, and the world is an ecosystem,” Kerry said. “If you poison our land and you poison our water and you poison our air, you poison our bodies.”

He said his daughter Vanessa, who works with Tedros, “repeats to me frequently that we should not measure progress on the climate crisis just by the degrees averted, but by the lives saved.”

A COP28 declaration backed by some 120 countries stressed the link between health and climate change. It made no mention of phasing out planet-warming fossil fuels, but pledged to support efforts to curb health care sector pollution, which accounts for 5% of global emissions, according to the WHO head.

Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, head of climate and health at WHO, said heat alone has put pressure on the body and led to higher rates of infectious disease.

“Climate change doesn’t need to be on a death certificate for us to be confident that climate change is causing deaths,” Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, WHO’s head of climate and health, said.

Europe is experiencing longer and more intense heatwaves with each year. Read an explainer on the link between extreme heat and climate change here:

Bill Gates opens Health Day with empowering speech

Philanthropist Bill Gates opened Health Day with a speech that made clear the links between climate change, health and finance.

He said it was "thrilling to have a health-focussed event at the COP".

He went into the impacts that climate change is having: "vector-borne diseases are showing up in places they never did before", flooding leads to more mosquitoes and diarrhoea, and heat stress on farmers leads to less productive crops.

He underlined the potential costs if we do not adapt to climate chang. The World Health Organization estimates that over the next 20 years, climate change will be responsible through the "mechanisms" he outlined for over 5 million deaths.

He explained what can change if mony is made available: funding for vaccines has saved over 25 million lives and funding for HIV has saved 20 million lives. Gates has been witness to much of this progress through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which provides funding for research into the biggest global health challenges.

He went on to explain the need for funding to help farmers to keep farming, explaining what happens if crop failure means a family does not have enough to eat: if a child is suffering from malnutrition, their system is much less able to fight off disease.

Helping farmers to be able to keep farming will be a “major offset”, he said.

Fossil fuel company pledges 'fall short' of what is needed - UN Secretary General

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has just delivered some harsh criticism of yesterday's pledge from 50 oil and gas companies at an event on early warning systems.

"The fossil fuel industry - the giant behind the climate crisis - is finally starting to wake up," Guterres said.

"But the promises made clearly fall short of what is required."

The UN Secretary-General said that the commitment to eliminate methane by 2030 was "a step in the right direction". But the announcement about achieving net zero by 2040 "says nothing about eliminating emissions from fossil fuel consumption".

He also criticised yesterday's announcement for not providing clarity on how exactly these fossil fuel companies plan to reach net zero.

"There must be no room for greenwashing."

Pope Francis and Grand Imam unite to back urgent climate action

This morning, the first-ever faith pavilion at a COP was inaugurated.

In a video message shown at the inauguration, Pope Francis said the creation of the pavilion " testifies to the willingness to work together."

"Today, the world needs alliances that are not against someone, but for the benefit of everyone. Let us, as religious representatives, set an example to show that change is possible, to demonstrate respectful and sustainable lifestyles, and let us fervently ask the leaders of nations to preserve our common home."

The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar added: “The exceptional initiatives undertaken by the Muslim Council of Elders - firstly, inviting diverse religious figures to sign the Abu Dhabi Interfaith Statement for COP28 and secondly, establishing the first-ever Faith Pavilion at COP28 - are precious opportunities in making the voice of religious leaders heard in the face of global challenges - especially advancing the protection of our common home from irreversible destruction, which looms larger every passing year."

Is the UAE’s blue ammonia really ‘low carbon’? Experts aren’t so sure“When I first started hearing about blue hydrogen, let alone blue ammonia, it seemed like a scam, quite frankly,” says Robert Howarth, Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology at Cornell University. “In some ways, it is.”

Good morning from Dubai! It's set to be another busy day here at COP28 and we'll be bringing you stories from across the conference throughout the day.

But first, let's catch up on what you might have missed yesterday.

- 117 governments pledged to triple the world's renewable energy capacity by 2030.
- 50 fossil fuel firms signed net zero and methane pledges - but they only cover the production of oil and gas, not the emissions produced by the actual product when it is burned.
- A slew of new countries swore off coal use including Czech Republic - one of the three big coal laggards in the EU.
- Financial pledges continued to pour in with Norway announcing a $25 million (€23m) contribution to the loss and damage fund. The US promised $3 billion (€2.76bn) for the Green Climate Fund.
- Private institutions earmarked $1 billion (around €920,000) for climate and health. But experts have warned of the need to honour these pledges in the long term.
- As speeches from world leaders continued, the Global South and Pope Francis took aim at the Global North while others took the opportunity to highlight the environmental damage caused by the bombing of Gaza.

If you need a refresher on what this whole thing is about, check out our explainer: