ICN urges COP28 to turn words into action as climate change threatens our health and future of the planet

30 November 2023
PR 44

The International Council of Nurses (ICN) is joining with other health organizations to express its frustration to the COP28 climate change conference about the lack of progress on climate change action.

This year the Conference of the Parties (COP28), which is being held in Dubai in the first week of December, will include a whole day dedicated to health on Sunday 3 December.

ICN has joined the World Health Organization (WHO) and other health organizations in calling for participants at the conference urgently to implement already-agreed action to curb rising global temperatures and their disastrous health care related consequences.

WHO has described the global ‘addiction’ to fossil fuels as an act of environmental vandalism that is sabotaging health care.

And ICN believes that further inaction threatens the ability of nurses and health systems to cope with additional burdens caused by climate change.

ICN is a signatory to a number of agreements, including WHO’s Uniting for Health and Climate Action, which calls on governments to “raise their ambition for a healthier, fairer and greener future.”

Its call highlights:

  • Delivery of the Paris Agreement and an acceleration of the phase out of fossil fuels, saving one million lives a year by reduced air pollution.
  • The building of climate-resilient, low-carbon health systems.
  • Deliver on promises of US$ 100 billion a year in climate finance, and the spending of money on saving lives and improving the health of the most vulnerable.

For nurses and nursing associations, this means advocating for the phase out of fossil fuels, building resilient health systems and strengthening the health workforce, and ensuring that part of the climate financing goes to health workforce preparedness for climate action.

ICN President Dr Pamela Cipriano said: “Every day, nurses are seeing the effects of climate change in their work with patients. More people are coming into our health care centres, hospitals and clinics complaining of heat exhaustion, respiratory issues, allergies and exposure to smoke among other climate change induced conditions. In short, nurses are intimately involved in addressing the escalating and noxious effects of climate change, which are robbing people of their health.

“ICN firmly believes that COP28 is an opportunity to adopt unified solutions and take action to implement mitigation and adaptation policies that also protect our health. This means phasing out “dirty energy”, including coal, oil and gas that have negative impacts on health and the environment, and prioritising clean energy sources. We must invest in a healthy and climate-safe future: the time to act on this is now.”

The President of the Emirates Nursing Association Dr Sumaya Mohammed Alblooshi will be attending the COP28 health day following a briefing meeting on ICN’s position on climate change by ICN Chief Executive Officer Howard Catton.

Health Care Without Harm, which ICN supports has teamed up with other climate change organizations to place a full-page advertisement in the Financial Times today (30.11.23) to focus energy on calls to phase out fossil fuels.

ICN has also signed up to the following agreements: