COP27 kicks off for the 27th annual conference in Egypt
08 November 2022
By RJ Heron
COP27 has begun and runs from Monday 7th to Friday 18th of November, the UN Climate Action Conference will be hosted in Sharm El-Sheikh and will see world leaders come together to discuss and address both actions and goals that must be met to build a healthier future for people and the planet.
The current picture
Ahead of COP27, the United Nations and World Health Organisation hosted a webinar on climate change negotiations and health, the session gave an overview of recent milestones and addressed the key health priorities related to climate change. You can find more information on this and watch the webinar on WHO Newsroom webpage.
Two must read reports have been published recently, first The Lancet’s Countdown on health and climate change which summaries the current global impacts of climate change on health – they have also provided an interactive visual summary of the key findings of the report.
The second is the UN’s 2022 Emissions Gap Report which highlights the need for global action at this year’s conference and beyond to meet our global goal of preventing global average temperature rise above 1.5oC.
Closer to home
NHS organisations are working hard behind the scenes to play their part in reducing the environmental impact of our health service. In 2020 history was made when the NHS became the first to commit to delivering the world’s first net zero health service.
During this process of national decarbonisation to meet our goal of net zero, each individual Trust has published its own organisational strategy to meet this goal in the form of a Green Plan.
If you would like to read the full Green Plan reports, please follow the links below:
Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust
Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust
University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust
This video explains in more detail how our Green Plans will translate in to action to reduce our environmental impact:
Free training to help encourage positive change
To mark the event the Greener NHS Team have announced that a free online course will be available to all health and social care staff, launching on the 7th of November the course will cover topics like; change starts with me, resourcefulness, using power to make a difference, using stories to create change, and making sense of complexity – find all the details here.
Follow the conference
You can keep up with all the developments of the conference the official COP27 website and on COPTV through the Twitter page @COP27P.
