A Knowledgebase of UN and Intergovernmental
Activities Addressing Global Climate Change Policy

June 2008: This workshop is

scheduled to take place on 1-2 July 2008 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and

will be organized under the auspices of the UN Economic Commission for Europe

Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and

International Lakes (Water Convention) and the Protocol on Water and Health to

the Water Convention. The event will address, inter alia: current

knowledge about adaptation and climate change; policy, legislative, institutional

and financial frameworks; forecasting, modelling and vulnerability, including

vulnerability of water-related sectors such as energy, agriculture and tourism;

and adaptation and coping measures.

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4 June 2008: Speaking at the FAO High-Level Conference on

World Food Security, which convened in Rome, Italy, from 3-5 June 2008, Louise

Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that the food crisis is a

forceful signal “about individual human rights and the need for collective

action.” Reporting on a special session of the Human Rights Council on the food

emergency, she called for a human rights framework to analyze the causes of the

crises and “to clarify the power imbalances inside and between countries that

trigger or exacerbate the food crisis, including unfair trade practices or

skewed policies involving incentives and subsidies.”

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3 June 2008: Noting that food choices and nutrition are

highly sensitive to food prices, World Health Organization (WHO)

Director-General Margaret Chan sent a message to the FAO High-Level Conference

on World Food Security, which convened in Rome, Italy from 3-5 June 2008,

highlighting that “the food crisis is a direct threat to much hard-won progress

in health development.”

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24 May 2008: Warning of the potential risks of climate change to human health, the sixty-first World Health Assembly adopted a resolution (WHA61/19) urging member states to take decisive action to address the health impacts of climate change. Climate change was discussed on Thursday, 22 May, when the plenary considered the Executive Board resolution on health and climate change (E122.R4) and a report by the WHO Secretariat.

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19 May 2008: In her address to the sixty-first session of the World Health Assembly, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan identified climate change, together with soaring food prices and pandemic influenza, as three humanitarian crises looming on the horizon that represent international security threats.

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15 May 2008: The 61st session of the World Health Assembly, to take place in Geneva, Switzerland, from 19-24 May 2008, will be invited to consider a resolution on climate change and health (EB122.R4), adopted by the Executive Board at its 122nd session.

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5 May 2008: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) announced a contribution of US$40 million for a new Climate Change Fund it is establishing to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change in the Asia-Pacific region.

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24 April 2008: According to a new book, a new generation of medical treatments may be lost unless the current rate of biodiversity loss is reversed. The book, Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity, was supported by UNEP, the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Development Programme and IUCN, and was edited and written by Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein, from Harvard Medical School, along with more than 100 contributing scientists.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) celebrated World Health Day on 7 April 2008 under the theme “Protecting health from climate change.” WHO selected this theme in recognition of the diverse threats to global public health security that climate warming poses, including the changing dynamics of infectious diseases outbreaks; the recurrence of natural disasters; and intensification of deforestation, floods and desertification.

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Delegates to the 122nd session of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Executive Board meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, adopted a resolution on climate change and health (EB122.R4).

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