The CLIMATE CRISIS is a HEALTH CRISIS – and the European Region is in the hot seat

Good morning, good afternoon, chair, commissioners, honorable minister. Thank you so much for hosting us here in Rekavik. Thanks also to all of the colleagues joining us online. We have people joining us from all corners of the world. My special thanks to Palao for joining us where it's midnight at the moment, the island state in the Pacific, and many others joining us from all of the WHO regions globally. My name is Rob Butler. I'm speaking on behalf of the WHO regional office for Europe. It's an absolute pleasure to welcome you to this landmark event, the launch and first public hearing of the panuropean commission on climate and health. Today marks a very important step forward. Convening this commission is not just timely. It is absolutely essential because let's be clear, the climate crisis is not a distant or abstract threat. It's shaping the quality of the air we breathe, the safety of the food we eat, and the security of the homes we live in. It disrupts our communities, our economies, and most critically, our well-being. The impacts are very real. They're very personal and they are already here and that is why our regional director Dr. Hans Kuga is committed to placing health at the very heart of climate action and that is exactly what this commission sets out to do. Bringing together political leaders, scientists and change makers from across the WHO region to drive the urgent action we need. Today's hearing is a true milestone, one that sets the tone and direction for the commission's work. You'll hear from four leading experts who will share their insights into how climate change threatens our health and how we can respond. But before we dive into the evidence, let us begin with something much more personal, something that reminds us why this matters so deeply. It is my very great honor to introduce Mr. Enzo Latuka, mayor of Chesena in northern Italy, who is joining us remotely today. Mayor Latuka has witnessed firsthand how the climate crisis is unfolding not in theory, but on the very streets of his city. The mayor's story is a powerful reminder that this crisis is not about tomorrow. It is about today, touching life in very profound ways. Meat Tuka, it's an absolute honor to have you with us virtually today, sir. Thank you for joining us and bringing the voice of your community to this conversation. Would you kindly share with us what happened in your city and how those events have touched the lives of residents and influence your own understanding of what the climate crisis truly means for the people, families, and communities in Chesina. Dear Mr. Butler, your assences, honorable commissioners, regional director, honorable members of the commission. Thank you for this important opportunity to bring the direct voice of our community to this institutional setting. The events of May 2023 represent the chapter that deeply mark the recent history of Chaza and the whole of Ailia Romania. Between May's 16th and 17th, rainfall equivalent to about half the average annual precipitation fell on our region, causing the overflow of 23 rivers and 75,000 landslides. It was an exceptional precipitation, but is only half of what happened in Valencia last year. The SA rivers which runs through the our city overflowed along with dozens of smaller water courses causing the flooding and damage of hundreds of public and private buildings including many business with estimate damage amounting to more than 8 billion euro in the whole region. Even today, two years later, many families live living near the river. Fear have a storm as a potential flood. The image I always carry with me is that of the days that follow it. Hundreds of citizens in the map and thousands of volunteers who came to Chisana from Holover, Italy and Euring one another to clear houses and streets from the map. People who didn't give up, who showed how how our communities respond to disaster with unity and solidarity. From a scientific point of view, what we experienced is a concrete example of how climate change is haltering the frequency and the intensity of extreme weather events. We can no longer listen to those who deny these facts. As a local administrator, I have personally witnessed the hardency of completely rethinking our approach to come to climate resilience. Moreover, we can no longer consider these events as unforeseeable emergencies. They are the new normal we must learn to live with. We have already invested here over 20 million euros in hydraulic safe works. But we know that a systemic paradigm shift is needed. Much larger investments at the European level must be developed, deployed for the adaption of our cities to the ongoing chains, not only flats, but also drought, heat waves, down brats and others. The most important lesson we take from this experience is that the climate crisis is not a problem of the future. It is a present reality that is impacting our communities today right now in our homes. Thank you for your attention and for the commitment you are dedicate dedicating to this vital issue for the futures of our communities. Thank you. Thank you very much Mayor Luka for joining us. I'm going to come back to you shortly if I may. Um before I do that, I just wanted to thank you for this very powerful reminder of why the time to act is now and why it is a collective responsibility to do so. Thank you very much for joining us once again. As I say, I'll come back to you shortly. Um now I have the great honor to introduce her excellency um prime minister, former prime minister Katrine Jakobsier, chair of the commission. Uh chair, if I could ask you, um of course we feel very fortunate to have you as a global leader on sustainability and social justice uh chairing this commission. Can you say a few words about why you decided to chair this commission and what you hope to achieve from it? Thank you. Thank you, Rob. Um and thank you Anso uh for sharing your experience and I think that is really the answer why I took on this project to chair this very important commission because the evidence is so very clear. We see the temperature increase in the European region which is twice as fast as the global average. We see the growing evidence on the impacts of climate change on health and well-being which calls for urgent and transformative action both to adapt to climate change but also to mitigate climate change because we need to do both. Um and as we saw, climate change has already hit the European region hard with many thousands of people experiencing floods, drafts, heat waves, air pollution from wildfires and climate sensitive uh health outcomes such as vectorbor respiratory and cardiovascular diseases are observed as well as growing burden of mental ill health conditions. So, and more broadly, climate change is also affecting the security and the safety of food and water and the loss of ecosystems and biodiversity also contribute to these adverse effects on health. So, I think it's fair to say that the climate crisis poses a serious threat to Europe's safety and security, to our social cohesion, to our democratic structures, our human rights and our health and obviously this is something that we need to react to and respond to uh as soon as possible. So what we need to say see is concerted action at the scale and pace uh to prevent, protect, prepare and respond to climate change and accelerate adaptation and mitigation efforts that deliver health co- benefits, deliver prosperity, intergenerational justice and protect the integrity of public health services. I also would like to add because we are dealing with disinformation and we are dealing with misinformation when it comes to science and facts on climate change and we are seeing this eroding public trust. So what this commission needs also to do is to tackle that. We need to promote scientific literacy, transparent communication and uh build trust in public institutions. Now uh to conclude, I'm very honored to be working with the commissioners around this table. Uh there is vast experience uh vast knowledge and wisdom around this table. Um, I also am very happy to be working with the chief scientific adviser, Sir Andrew Hines, professor of environmental change and public health, who will be the chief scientific adviser to the commission. And I'm also very happy and honored to be working with WH, a leading institution when it comes to public health. And what we are planning to do is to gather knowledge and wisdom from experts uh through our next hearings. So we will be listening to people with lived experiences. We will be listening to scientists and expert and gather information and build our work on solid scientific grounds. uh we will focus on making uh and building practical recommendations recommendations that are implementable for policy makers around the region. um we will identify gaps and opportunities for accelerated action and because we have this experience here around the table I am convinced that we will be able to deliver recommendations that uh policy makers around the region and hopefully around the globe will be able to use because that is our main goal to see action coming out of the works of this commission. So I am really grateful for having this opportunity but also looking forward to this project which is in my mind one of the most important ones uh in global politics and policym today. Thank you very much chair and thank you. It was very clear call to action to your commission a commission convened by a champion of health equity a visionary leader Dr. Hans Kluga. I would like to ask you Hans uh as you convened this uh commission what were your hopes and expectations for its outcomes. Thank you Rob and I will not uh repeat on why it is so important. We have heard from people who are much better versed than me on that one but on the expectations. So when I started my second mandate for next five years since recently I committed that even more than before who original office for Europe will remain what I call like the kind of the watchdog for equity and humanity and universality. I think that's very important because be the covid-19 and we have so many top experts who have dealt with this around the table not at least the minister of health of Iceland also professor lbacha and many of you minister kipus who has connected we see that it's always the vulnerable who are hit first and foremost actually we could almost mathematically predict who will die first if there would be another pandemic or another crisis it are the youngest the eldest the people with what we call non-communical diseases, pre-existing chronic diseases with diabetes and heart diseases and ultimately those people with the least resources in society and I think this is more important. Our European region has always been really excelling globally on standing strong for universal values and universal health coverage and I think that is something very important for this commission. Number two, I'm very thrilled. I spoke about this already at the press uh event this morning to have the youth with us. I'm a strong believer of the youth. I created five years ago the youth for health initiative which Dr. Tedros then also established uh globally the youth for health council. We need to have the youth on board. They're still suffering a lot on the mental health from the COVID 19. 28% of the girls 15 year old in our region say that they feel lonely most of the time or the whole time we see actually including my two own daughters wondering right whether they should marry and which kind if they put children uh right on the in which kind of world will these children grow up so I think we we need the youth on board and also to communicate because we can do a lot of things ourselves very practical and that is the third Prime Minister mentioned already pragmatic concrete because there's so many priorities there's so few budget what can be done very concretely by ourselves as a citizen as the youth as the minister of health this is very important that uh I think we we discussed this with the prime minister should not limit the recommendation of the minister of health but it has to be delineated very important because obviously I would like to bring the outcome to our governing board which is the region committee 53 minister of health then to the world health assembly globally and then to the UNGA we had a bit of a brainstorming already yesterday with prime minister Yakobi but my governing board is of course looking what is in the mandate of the minister of health and I think that's why we had a little bit of a challenge Dr. Ted had a bit of a challenge at the last world health assembly when the global climate action plan was being discussed that minister were a bit hesitant say but you're asking something from me that I don't have the mandate authority or the resources so again we should not I think one of the beauties of the commission is that we have a lot of very strong non-health actors that we have to learn from but to delineate the recommendations are for which kind of audience and with your help then I remember professor Mario Monty because we had the Monty Commission was telling the strength of a commission. Hans he told and I always remember is not the report is whether the recommendations will be implemented or not then you can say that it is has been a successful uh commission. So I think that are a bit of the uh points and thank you again chair for you know we're very very thrilled that you agreed also sir and the haynes right you to have your authority is important because there's a lot out there but I think we have to make it digestible for our audience and last but absolute least my main counterpart you madame minister I remember first time that we met in the castrop airport you were telling that you were indeed exceptionally a clinician who has shifted to public health. I think that's very important because any reform in a country is difficult if you don't have the clinicians behind you. But most clinicians like my father, I think it took me 30 years, he was a chief dromatologist in Belgium to convince him of public health. So it's very important that you have this combined mandate and I'm very very humbled to to sit next to you and thank you for for hosting you in your beautiful country. Thank you D. Absolutely. Thank you very much regional director Dr. Hans Kluger and of course Dr. Alma Müller, thank you very much for joining us and for hosting us today. Dear Minister, I'd like to ask you, of course, Hans is talking about how this commission will support the member states. How do you see it supporting Iceland? Well, first of all, it's a great honor to welcome you to Iceland and to participate in the launch of this very important initiative. Uh, that's a great question, Rob, and uh, I'm certain that Iceland can benefit greatly from the commission's work, both through technical insights and strategic alignment. First, um, I see that the commission will gather cutting edge evidence on climate related health risks and effective interventions. And this kind of knowledge is essential for Iceland as we update our adaptation plans, strengthen the resilience of our health system and uh modernize our emergency preparedness. And having worked as an intensive care physician uh for 30 years, I know firsthand that solid evidence is the foundation of sound decision making. Second, um Iceland is already a leader in sustainability, especially in renewable energy and the commission gives us chance to show how our climate efforts also support health like how crafting air pollutions help reduce respiratory and cardiovascular disease. So in a sense, clean energy policy is a public health policy. And third, I I want to mention that I believe uh the commission can help raise the profile of public health in policym. Uh again in intensive care I saw care was given too much too late to too few and that taught me the value of prevention and thinking at the population level. something that many policy makers and especially politicians still underestimate and one way to change that is to include public health impact assessment in government decisions and in a way the commission's work is a public health assessment for climate change and I'm sure it will show the risks of inaction and the need for urgent coordinated responses. And I would also like the commission to uh define uh climate specific public health indicators for us uh to follow. And finally, the commission's uh focus on communication, equity, and justice is strongly aligned with Iceland's core values as a society. And it will, I hope, give us platform to speak up for small state states and for Actic nations, making sure their challenges are heard. And I also believe that the uh commission will help us foster multis sectoral collaboration, something we need more of, including here in Iceland. So in short uh Iceland can draw on the commission's work to shape national strategies, strengthening strengthen cooperation and lead by example turning climate action into better health for everyone and I wish you a very good success. Thank you. Thank you very much Madame Minister. Thank you for that encouragement, for that inspiration, inspiring words in an inspiring place. So, thank you once again also for hosting us and for encouraging the commission moving forward. You've outlined some unique health sector challenges ahead. I'm wondering if I can turn now to you, Sir Andy Haynes, our chief scientific adviser. I don't want to be preemptive, sir Andy, but could you talk a little bit to what kind of recommendations we might expect from this commission? Well, well, thanks Rob. First of all, let me say it's not for me to tell the uh commission what they're going to recommend, but I certainly can offer some reflections and also let me say that uh like a number of our like my colleague to the left, the honorable health minister, I was also a clinician for many years. So, I spent a lot of time working with patients. Um I was in family practice but but actually practiced in very diverse uh environments in different countries around the world. So um I made that transition too from clinical medicine into public health and now into this broader domain of planetary health linking um environmental change with human health. So one of the reasons that I was very honored to accept this role was because um both of the leadership of the prime minister and also Dr. Kuger but also the opportunity to interact with all of you the diverse commissioners and I think it's really important to have a diverse range of disciplines and perspectives in tackling this issue. because I understand the anxiety of ministers of health being asked to deliver and sectors that they can't directly influence. But I do think they have a very important role in reaching out to their colleagues in different sectors. And I think that's a message that we need to communicate. But I'd also say that it's really important to validate the whole area of climate change and health and environmental health more generally in in for clinical doctors and nurses and other clinicians but also for public health professionals because this has been an area that's been greatly neglected I would say in both in education and in research. Um a few years ago if you'd have asked me well what proportion of um the health impacts from climate are actually due to human induced climate change it would have been very difficult to say but we are saying big changes in methodology now and that comes from working with different disciplines. So now we work with climatologists for example a whole range of different disciplines work with agricultural scientists um disciplines we'd never worked with in traditional um uh public health and I think this is really important to validate this new approach but also to uh validate this the importance of attributing some of these advances in methodology which allow us to say what proportion of heat related deaths can be attributed to climate change what proportion of flood related impacts can be attributed to climate change That's important not just from science but also from the policy response and also be very important in issues like climate litigation for example and we know that the reason some of these cases have failed is because they haven't used the best available scientific evidence. So that's one is endorsing this as as a really valuable and important area particularly this new science of attribution. The second and this is a question that's often asked to me about um economics and how do we value these kind of health benefits from climate action and I'm not an economist but I do think there's a need to reinvision economics because at the moment our current economic system is clearly driving us to destruction. I mean this is what's under underpinning the whole climate change and many of the other unsustainable trends. So we as non-economists have to ask the economists well why is this happening and what can be done to make the economic system actually consistent with health and sustainability and I think this is an important question which I hope the commission will at least ask and maybe in a future hearings we can try to get some answers from our economic colleagues and I know the welcome trust is funding some groundbreaking work in this area trying to look at better economic measures of human progress and metrics which can assess as you said assess um how we measure human progress in the face of climate change. The third area I think is really important is is governance and I know this is something that's close to the heart of the prime minister. Um but I think governance reforms to achieve health in the net zero economy will be absolutely crucial. How do we achieve health in all policies? Um I mean the vision of Dr. Mar all those years ago of of um uh health for all is a very important one but it didn't include the dimension of the environment and that's what we need I think to bring to that so this will be a really important area for the commission to consider fourthly I would say you know we have to take the population with us we know that just preaching to people and telling them they have to change their lifestyle isn't going to work in fact it creates it it actually encourages populism and misinformation disinformation so how do we involve communities in trying to understand what the challenges are and how to articulate some of the responses and those communities obviously must include the young because they're going to have to bear the brunt of frankly the mess that we are uh in danger of leaving behind to them. So let's involve them uh from the outset and make a very uh key point of doing that. Miss and disinformation has been mentioned several times and I I think it's no good just waiting passively to uh respond to miss and disinformation. We actually have to develop uh feasible strategies which will help us to counteract myths and disinformation because they're um increasingly these are being weaponized as we're seeing uh we're seeing artificial intelligence and and machine learning used for uh what we would consider to be undesirable ends. But there is a positive angle to that too. We're increasingly working with colleagues in machine learning and AI to actually use these approaches to synthesize evidence for example far more rapidly than we've been able to in the past. So there are positive uses as well as negative uses and we have to harness the increasing power. Uh next I would say climate smart technologies. I'm not a believer that technological change can answer all of our problems but you can't ignore technological change. You've got to embrace it and you've got to capitalize on the potential that technological change offers. And technological change can contribute to both adaptation for example through better early warning systems but also can contribute to mitigation for example we've seen that with clean energy technologies but I think the food system is going to be one area where we're going to see a lot of technological change which will dramatically could potentially dramatically reduce the environmental footprint of the food system and address food insecurity. And finally my final point would be around responsibilities to act because this is not a spectator sport. we really have to act in order to address the burgeoning challenges that climate change is throwing at us. So I hope that the commission will recognize the opportunities to integrate action at the science policy interface but also to bring in the broader public particularly uh youth in order to help us to articulate a vision for health in a net zero emission economy. Thank you very much. Thanks very much Sari. Um Meat Tuker you're still with us online. uh Sir Andy was nudging us there, encouraging us to think intergenerationally. He prompted us to think about uh accountability, governance. He also referred to, of course, the economics and the argument and embracing technology and modern communications techniques. I'm wondering what you you've heard from the panelists now, Meat Tuka. I'm wondering if you could just reflect in a couple of minutes uh what you've heard and what your call to action would be to this commission and to the political leaders that this commission will speak to in the future. Thank you for the floor, Rob. My message to European political leaders is clear and hardened. Climate change must be taken seriously, not as a distant treat but as a present reality that is already reshaping our community. What we experienced in Romania is not an isolated high incident. It is a preview of Europe of our climate future. Standard future mitigation policy must remain high on the EU agenda. But above all, we must give equal priority to climate adaption with the same hardency we reserve for economics crisis. I speak as a local administrator directly facing the impacts of climate change. Adaptation is not an option. It is essential. How are infrastructure and city development plans are not up to the reality of the ongoing climate crisis. city across Europe must adapt and this requires a structural and long-term European funding plan. Local governments cannot face this challenge alone. This is no longer about emergency response but about systematically transforming the way of our city function. The families in my city expect Europe. They expect also the other institution to make climate adaption and mitigation of course a cornerstone of power policy with stable and long-term fun. I think that acting now is a moral and a political duty. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I'd like to thank all of the panelists for helping us launch formally this commission here in Rekavic today. Uh it's time now to go to work. So I'm going to turn the floor to our dear chair who will introduce our first speaker and take the morning from here. Thank you chair. Thank you Rob. And yes, we are entering work phase uh starting our first hearing. And our first speaker is professor Johan Rostrom, director of the Potam Institute for Climate Impact Research and professor in Earth System Science in the University of Potam in Germany. Uh Dr. Johan Roxm is an internationally recognized scientist on global sustainability and earth resilience. He led the development of the planetary boundaries framework for human development in the current era of rapid global change. He's deeply involved in research on the future trajectory of the anthroposine and tipping points in the earth's system and with more than 25 years of experience in applied water research in tropical regions. He is also a leading scientist on global water resources. He is the driving force behind a myriad international scientific initiatives including the earth commission and the planetary boundary science initiative as well as actively consulting on global sustainability issues for national and multilateral government organizations and business networks. So we are very happy to have you with us today Johan. The floor is yours and after your intervention we will open the floor for commissioners for questions. But Johan please. Thank you so much um Prime Minister Katrina and um well all commissioners um let me just start by first providing my strong support for launching this panuropean commission on climate and health. uh what I will try to provide scientifically is uh the scientific evidence why I think you unavoidably actually will have to take um not only climate and health into account but actually broaden this to planetary health and the links to human health. The reason for this is that we know that we are putting so much pressure on the earth system that we are at risk of destabilizing the habitability, the fundamental stability and the resilience of the whole earth system. And that the climate, the state of the climate and how that interacts and impacts on human health are all the aggregate effects of what happens with fresh water, land, biodiversity, nitrogen, phosphorus, air pollutants, chemicals, all the systems that regulates the stability of the earth system. And we are at a point today where science is really concerned. And this kind of follows on Sir Andy Haynes really important inputs here on the panel that we need not only better attribution science but also better risk analysis because we're starting to see the first signs indications of a planet losing resilience. Human forcing is not going down in terms of environmental damage, pollutants, and greenhouse gas emissions. But we're also, and this is what makes us really nervous, starting to see changes in feedbacks in the health of the planet itself. And what impacts these have on human health is still a big challenge for us. Here we have the temperature rise. You've seen these curves. Last year, 2024, we just breached for the first time 1.5° C of global mean surface temperature rise. The warmest temperature on Earth over the past 100,000 years. This is a massive unpred unprecedented and unexpected rate change because what we're seeing is unfortunately a decade and that's what you see in these arrows a decade of accelerated warming on Earth. To the left hand side air temperature and to the right hand side sea surface temperatures we have a scientific discussion right now on trying to explain this. Undoubtedly there is solar cycling. There is Enso uh oscillation, the El Nino event that we experienced. Um there is a reduction in air pollutants which actually paradoxically has positive health impacts but actually bumps up warming. But we're also seeing signs for the first time of a biosphere losing its ability to absorb carbon. You may have seen this data which is on the screen now which is the global carbon cycle each year updating on the gray above the zero line the emission of greenhouse gases carbon from fossil fuels in gray from ecosystem change in orange. Is it all of this that has caused the climate crisis so far? The answer is no. The dark green and the light green is the carbon dioxide taken up by the ocean light green and on land intact nature dark green. Unfortunately, we're seeing signs of cracks in this ability. Over the last 150 years, 50% of our CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and ecosystem degradation has been taken up and absorbed from healthy nature. Now, we're starting to see the first signs of this going down, particularly on land. And this is very dramatic because it's only the blue residual you see on this graph that remains in the atmosphere absorbing heat causing the crisis which impacts human health. We also see a planet getting darker and this is a really worrying trend because that would be a fundamental feedback change in the planet which comes out of a warmer ocean, more evaporation, more lowaltitude clouds which has a net warming effect because of the darkening of the planet's surface. So altogether we're seeing the first signs of a planet's health going down. And this is something that is particularly worrying because we now know what human health depends on. And the human health depends on staying within the corridor of life. And here we have the data. You've seen it, I'm sure. But here is a great summary of the latest science. 400,000 years on the x-axis. Let's look further to the right here. We are heading towards 3.1° C of global warming by the end of this century. Dear colleagues, 3.1° C is a place we haven't seen on planet Earth for the past 4 to 5 million years. It is, to put it simple, a path to disaster. There's no evidence that we can with dignity and responsibility cater for a human population on Earth at that level of warming. We've today reached the zero 1.3°C of global mean surface temperature rise. But we also now have the data which if you look a bit further to the left here of this very narrow corridor of life which is the temperature range within which we have been able to develop civilizations as we know it. Because we leave the last ice age if you look at the middle plate here if you see my mouse we leave the last ice age 18,000 years ago. It's deep ice age. We come into this very very stable holosene equilibrium state of the planet. 14° C. 14°C plus minus 0.5°. That's the maximum variability as far as we know today. And as I'm sure you remember from high school, we leave the last ice age as hunters and gatherers and we barely enter this holosene garden of Eden and we go through the neolytic revolution. We domesticate animals and plants and off we go in the civilizational journey that has taken us to the human health equilibrium that we have today. We are today already kicking ourselves out of this narrow desired life corridor that we all depend on. And if you then take this further back in time, you can actually take ice core data all the way throughout the plyto scene 1 million years and the data shows clearly that at the warmest point we've never exceeded 2° C. That's warm interglacial and deep ice age is minus5. This is what I call the broader life corridor because we've existed as modern humans on planet Earth for 250,000 years. So, we've lived through two ice ages before we enter the last uh very very stable holosene equilibrium state. What does this tell us? It tells us two things. One is that we have to be very humble and respectful to the fragility but also the self-regulating stability of the planet. And secondly, it's a very narrow range that has enabled human health as we know it and civilizations to develop. And now we are putting this stability at risk. Scientifically, this is very relevant because we now have a reference point. This is what we use to quantify the safe operating space on planet Earth because we quantify the the safe planetary boundaries to have a high chance of remaining within this interglacial stability domain. Now the third set of evidence though to be able to really protect human health is the recognition that our planet is a self-regulating complex biogeeoysical system that has interactions and feedbacks and as a rule of thumb a healthy planet is dominated by so-called negative feedbacks. That's not very pedagogic. I realize that but that's what science uses as terminology. Negative feedbacks are feedback that dampen stress. Meaning a resilient healthy planet can dampen the stress caused by greenhouse gas emissions, ecosystem change, pollutants, dampen it so that the planet remains in a healthy state. If you push a system too far like the green ice sheet, the Amazon rainforest, the ocean overturning of heat, you can cross a threshold and you have a tipping point. At the tipping point, the feedback changes direction from dampening to self-reinforcing. Meaning the system gets unhealthy and starts drifting away in the wrong direction. Now we have mapped the tipping element systems which you see on the screen that regulates the climate system. 16 of them. Six of them you see here up in the Arctic, the ground zero on planet Earth, the green and ice sheet, the permafrost. They're all linked through the AMO, the Gulfream system in the North Atlantic. via the Amazon rainforest all the way down to Antarctica. Three big systems in Antarctica. You also have the low latitude core reef systems across the entire planet. Big biohysical systems that regulates the health of the planet. We have for the first time I should say really first time because the list you see to the left here are the 16 tipping elements. They're in the IPCC6 assessment. But for the first time we've done what you see here in the burning embers graphs. This is a risk assessment. This is the best scientific assessment of the range of uncertainty and the dots is the median assessment. The likely levels of temperature at which these big tipping elements are likely to cross their tipping points. So on the x-axis here you have global mean surface temperature rise. And look at the top five which as you see come in the median risk level between 1 and 2°C. This means that the green ice sheet, the western antic sheet, the tropical core reef systems, livelihoods to over 400 million people on earth, uh abrupt throwing of perafrost and the collapse of the Labrador sea current are likely to cross their tippy points already in the range between 1 and two with a median at 1.5°C. That's why we put this as a planetary boundary. You don't want to exceed 1.5 because then you risk causing irreversible changes to the health of the planet. So planetary health is fundamental for the stability and life support on earth which has impacts of course on human her health not only on vulnerable communities in the global south who are the first victims but across the entire world and at this room of course I don't have to map the impact but just to give you a few hints of the science going on on the links between planetary health and human health we are currently working very very active actively together with Andy Haynes, but also Sam Meyers and Chris Ebi and other leading scholars in the planetary health community to connect the health of the planet biohysically with the human health dimensions and looking at this from planetary boundaries through the environmental changes you see here in in green to the proximate causes of how this translates to um exposure, vulnerability and and subject to impact and how this then impacts on human health across across the board from infectious diseases to non-communicable diseases. This is a major undertaking. There's been several efforts here. I mean you have the leading scientists on the commission with Andy Haynes and the pathfinder commission the lancet has been doing the global burn of disease efforts connecting to climate and health. You have a lot of the statistics here. I think it's just important to remember and to remind that despite all this dramatic data we are providing. It is very likely even almost certainly underestimates because so far we're largely able only to get good data on heat impacts on on human health and labor productivity with much less data on the other um global environmental change related health impacts. But the numbers are are very large today as you see on the screen. We also have um efforts of trying to quantify the just safe operating space within the planetary boundaries. I'm co-chairing the Earth Commission which um is um an effort of having a global science assessment of all the planetary boundaries which you see in the outer ring here in in in red and green but in blue you see the first efforts of adding the human health dimension asking the question for climate it may be so that 1.5° C is the safe boundary for planetary health stability but when we talk about human health the social science Sciences and health assessment places the just boundary on significant harm at 1° C. Beyond 1° C, the assessment is that we cross a threshold of unacceptable levels of significant harm. Same with aerosol loading. Aerosol loading causes shifts in the global monsoon systems and the stability and functioning of the earth system. But much much earlier it impacts on human health which is related to um 8 plus million premature deaths across the world because of air pollutants. So we use this data increasingly to connect planetary health with human health. Here you have data on uh lethal heat levels showing that at already at 1° C we cross the threshold of almost 100 million people affected already today by lethal heat levels. At 2° we cross a 250 million threshold which of course is is levels of unacceptable heat exposure. Uh and I just want to remind us here in this room that uh in Europe we already have experience of several heat related massive um premature death events 2022 being the most recent one with uh an attribution of an estimated 56% of these premature 60,000 heat related deaths uh directly related to human cause global warming. So, so this this attribution science is critical, but also to recognize that it's affecting across the entire planet. Air pollution, another planetary boundary prematurely accounting for over 8 million deaths globally and again showing how this is um um unevenly and and unequitably spread across the north and southern hemisphere. We also see more and more evidence that these planetary health impacts on human health are starting to have major economic costs. The latest assessment which you see here is that by 2050 already with current uh climate forcing we are very likely even if we follow a business as usual pattern which is the red track here uh facing an up to 1919% decline in income levels just because of climate related extreme events precipitation extremes and heat related extremes. 90%% loss by 2050 is is a very big number which of course will translate into major human health implications. Moreover, we're actually heading towards overshoot. This is um the best assessment that the IPCC can provide today. Uh the 100 or so climate scenarios that can still hold 1.5°C but only after overshoot which is inevitable in our assessment today. We're actually facing 30 40 years of up to 1.7 1.8 8°C even if we phase our fossil fuels to net zero by 2050. This means dear colleagues that we inevitably also will face higher degree of of extreme events risking human health over the coming decades before it potentially gets better if we can phase out fossil fuels at pace. So therefore I would argue that we need a planetary boundary framework to be able to also guide the transition in terms of planetary health and human health. The planet boundary framework, as you see here, shows that six of the nine planetary boundaries are outside of their safe operating space. We have now started to update this every year. This is the 2024 planetary health check. We're launching the second one in New York Climate Week this year in 2025. We're using a a health analogy here. So we really want to bridge the planet health to human health using a blood sample uh equivalent here taking the planet to the doctor confirming that six of the nine boundaries are outside of this green line where we want to be. We are in this danger zone for four of them uh in yellow but actually moving deep into the high-risk zone for nutrient flow um on phosphorus and nitrogen novel entities of chemicals and loss of biodiversity. So clearly there's such a strong argument to connect these two risk factors. Planetary health on tipping points and human health in terms of all forms of epidemological impacts. And I close with this just to share with you that we have for the first time tried to aggregate and place the planet as a whole on an aggregate assessment of where is the planet's health. And clearly the assessment is through expert elicitation and and the statistics we have and the data analytics we have we are in danger. We're outside of the safe space. We're in this yellow danger zone. But we also assess that we're not yet entirely in the red zone. The planet is still standing biogeeochemically providing us on net with dampening feedbacks. Quite remarkable actually that the resilience is still on the right side on the stable side of the fence which means that we need to urgently transition to avoid that the entire planet falls over into a red zone where we very likely would actually have uh an accelerated pathway of undermining human health even further and in an unstoppable way. So it's urgent and therefore this commission of course has a very very major importance. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Johan. Um, we have 10 minutes for questions from commissioners and I would like to make one comment and a very short question because I think uh the economic consequences is something that we need to take into account in our work and and the numbers that you're showing us are very drastic and I would imagine that policy makers around the globe would want to take them into account. one question because we are here in Iceland and you mentioned the emo the ocean current that actually makes Iceland uh livable and habitable. Could you maybe um clarify for us in a very short answer what changes we might be seeing in the AMO and then I have at least two questions here uh four questions here coming from commissioners so I will ask you to be very concrete please Johan. Yeah, thank thanks. Thanks, Katrine. So, the AMO, the Atlantic marriage overturning circulation, which regulates the the overturning of heat in the North Atlantic. It's part of the conveyor belt. It it passes through uh the the the US coast, the Gulf Stream area. That's why it's often wrongly called the Gulf Stream because that's only one one part of it. if the AMO shuts down and the likelihood of that happening isn't is low but it cannot be excluded. The IPCC puts that at less than 10% over this century but there are three scientific papers that have come out recently showing that the uh risk of of a shutdown of the AMO is is higher than that but I would still put it at at a low probability. However, the implications would be catastrophic. that is well understood today. If the AMO shuts down to begin with, you would get an abrupt cooling on Iceland, but also where I come from in Sweden, but you would get overall an abrupt warming across the entire planet. You would get a shift in uh the large monsoon system, so very likely a dieback of the Amazon rainforest. you would get a higher rate of sea level rise and you would simply destabilize the global climate system because uh the amoch is is one of the three engine points for the overall overturning of heat across the entire ocean system on planet earth. A big deal. Yeah, thank you so much for explaining that to us. Uh Carol, please. Well, first of all, I thank you uh Dr. Professor Oxm for this fascinating introduction and as you do know I follow your work quite closely. I have a strategic question when we I first of all I agree that we have to bring um health into the equation if you want to motivate people uh to be more interested in climate change. The interest in climate change is winding down as a matter of fact and I think one very important opportunity to change this is that we bring it home to the health of people and if we include health uh and individual health as an outcome here I think that's an opportunity the strategic question is whether the metaphor of the planetary health basically the the health of the planet is helping in that respect or maybe harmful and I'm open about this. Um if we speak about the health of the planet and at the same time the health of human beings then um many people may think that this is a metaphor and this is a a different way of expressing what we have known already that the planet is in a terrible shape. And uh an alternative would be that we clearly focus on what is worsening at an accelerated speed in particular the am weakening and the maritime warming. So that we basically say the tipping points are coming closer and then exclusively focus when it comes to climate and has on what is let's say important for human beings. So not using the metaphor of planetary health that's an open question. My experience as a minister of health and speaking about these issues with many people is the more specific the health risks for individuals are the more they care. For example, if you say that let's say um particle pollution PM 2.5 pollution is a risk factor for Alzheimer's dementia which is very well established that carries a lot of weight as a matter of fact because many people think well in 25 years I don't care about the planet but in 25 years I will be in the age when Alzheimer's dementia may be a problem for me and my mother was inflicted already. So that is then people start thinking about this very specifically. So my question is um sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh shall we use climate and health looking at the health part of the equation as a wider scope or should we narrow down on the health of individuals in order to motivate the let's say non-alistic but uh partially egoistic care that people expose when it comes to their individual health. It's a very important question. Since I have the terrible role of being a moderator, I will remind us to be very short and concrete. And Johan, please. Yeah, thank thanks Carl. Um, thank thanks a lot. And I think this was a very important reflection to begin with. I'm absolutely convinced and you know this. I'm absolutely convinced that human health, the human individual health is a key lever for the transition towards a sustainable, safe and secure future on planet earth. And I think we've underused that and that's why a commission like this and the work that is going on to link planetary stability with human health is fundamental. Then secondly the question of whether the um the analogy of using health uh terminology also for the state of the planet can can be debated for sure. That is not a primary issue though. I mean we are focusing very strongly on on the stability and the life support on earth and how that impacts on human health. And can you imagine nobody has yet quantified the human health impacts of breaching all the planetary boundaries. We're sitting with very many fragments here and and we are working on this and and we will achieve this very soon. But I think that that is the kind of information that we really need. Thank you Johan and I have Sandrine Dixon here please. Hi Yoan. Um thank you for another brilliant presentation. Just a few thoughts building on Carl's last point. If health is going to be one of the new levers that we could really unpack in terms of the narrative development but also the proposals that we make to governments can we bring in and this comes to Katherine's point the economic prosperity element that you and I have been working on also with regard to the social tipping points and look at some of the most recent data that you've brought forward in terms of shifting beyond GDP because we know that we're going to lose upwards of 17% and even more GDP perom. This is a perfect time to see whether we can convince governments to cost externalities by looking at new indicators and new metrics buffering GDP. So that's the second potential lever and the links to prosperity. The third is security. We know that Europe is focused on defense. We need to broaden the notion of security. What would be some of the best ways to do that? We all know that climate is a security issue and we also know that we will have more climate migration u due to uh continued climate change and climate impacts. So thinking of it from a lens of new levers, new narratives and ways in which we can better collaborate to bring these together. Thank you Sandrine and Johan please. Yeah, thank thanks Andre and um well I mean you and I have been discussing this and I find one of the biggest frustrations we're facing today is that we are allowing ourselves to run a global economy where a significant portion of of of the so-called growth is subsidized by planet and human human unhealth and that correcting that is one of the most fundamental challenges we have but that's not enough I I think what you're pointing at Sine is the work that we've been collaborating on in the earth for uh breakthrough initiatives because we can no longer solve the challenges we're facing through linear processes. We need to have exponential and transformative uh changes and that requires major major systemic efforts which which requires a change also in in the logic of the economics. But I think we can do so much already by connecting the evidence on health and the stability of the earth system with with values, economic values. And and on your point about security, yes, I mean that's one of we must admit I think one of our failures is to allow the whole sustainability agenda to sit too long in the environmental camp where it should much much more prominently uh be anchored in in in the area of health and security because that that's where that's where it belongs because that's where it plays out and u and how we can do that is is still ongoing work but I think we are on a good on a good position. now to provide the evidence of risk. I mean, not at least back to Andy Hayne's point about attribution, which is an assessment of risk ultimately, which therefore has connections to security. Thank you, Johan. It should be an overarching subject in every government really when we talk about sustainability. But Connie Heligard is next. Yeah. Hi, Yan. Good to see you. Just a very brief question for me. You mentioned towards the end of your presentation uh the question around uh research gaps. Could you try and specify a bit concretize? I mean we're going to end up having some recommendations. Where do you see the biggest gaps? Yeah, thank thanks Connie. Great great to see you as well. Well, I mean, one actually remains that this this commission uh takes on the climate health interface and and and I'm kind of trying to argue that scientifically at least that's not sufficient today anymore because the planet as a whole will determine the outcome for the climate and therefore determine the outcome for health. And that chain that cascade event between the functioning of the planet I mean just back to Katrine's question about the Amok immediately regulates climate which immediately regulates health. I think that that's one part. The second scientific question is actually on on attribution to be able to do better risk assessments and attribution research. attribution in terms of the culpability so to say the the cause behind are we the cause behind the impacts on human health because of climate change still needs a lot of effort but I think we also need much more on risk what risks are acceptable I mean again back to the AMO if if the if the likelihood of an amoch collapse is is below 10% but might sound like a small number but it's not a small number for a catastrophic impact and and therefore that uh a key research area and third and final I come back to my point about health implications of breaching boundaries. I think we need to get that full synthesis done which means fresh water utrification, air pollutants, chemicals, climate change, stratospheric ozone, ocean change to have all this in one systemic analysis which I think we can do today because the data is there uh in in different in different fragmented pockets. It's just not just but it's it's a major effort but it's an effort of getting that all synthesized and and I mean you have the perfect chief scientist on the commission to uh to to lead some of that work because Andy has been and is one of the leaders in the world in in that effort. Thank you Johan. And uh we have a question from Enrio Giovanini. And if there is one last question I have one last question and then we have to conclude this segment. with Enrico please. Thank you very much. Hayan, very nice to see you again. I have uh two points for you. Um although is a questions that will stay with us for a long time as a commission. First, how much space we need to allocate in our report to climate issues and how much on the health issues. This is I think a different balance to find otherwise our report will be unbalanced I would say. Uh so my question to you is we have a very uh flat if I may say so title climate and health. Uh just to reinforce it would you talk about uh climate crisis emergency disaster and so on. So help us in trying to find the language that according to your uh knowledge we should be using uh um with the different uh let's say also aims we have not to scare but not to give let's say light messages and so on. And the second question is a more technical. Maybe we can come back later on the um outside of this uh hearing. I'm very interested in the way in which you link from a modeling point of view the climate situation and the health situation. Do you think that uh the current state of the studies are strong enough to be used for regional estimates because we are WHO Europe let's say although as Katherine said we hope to be influential at the global level so how much the state of knowledge could be helpful to focus on the European area thank you Yan yeah thanks and and and great great to see you Enrico and um uh on your first question, I actually think that we need more focus on the on the impacts on human health rather than on on the climate change as such. Um I had an interaction yesterday actually with with Andrew Nordstrom who as you know was one of the key Swedish um players in in WHO. uh during the pandemic, not least. and and he emphasized very strongly in a discussion I had with him yesterday that that what we need is really mapping the human health impacts and and not not you should not redo what the IPCC does to put it simple and and I think that is um probably a valid question and and the better you can communicate um in in in in understandable language the the impacts on human health I think I think that would be a very very important contribution. On your second question, I would say that um well on you you had this second question about the language. I think it's a strength that you have um let's say a not dramatizing title. Um so I wouldn't I wouldn't add a lot of adjectives to the title, but I would consider very early making the point that it's about the stability of the planet. And secondly, I would not hesitate in the report to um to to align yourself with what the scientific evidence shows, which is that we have a planetary crisis on our watch. Um if you use the word emergency, which both Sandrine and I have been using, a planetary emergency, I I would be agnostic to that. But I I think at a minimum, you have to talk about this for what it is, namely a a a planetary scale crisis. and importantly that we're all in this together and that Europe is is actually affected as much as as other parts in the world and as you pointed out Katrina I mean Europe is warming twice as fast as the global average so so we are definitely in um geographically in in a place where things are happening very fast and can we enrio downscale this to the regional level I would argue that the answer is yes um I mean both in terms of the modeling uh on impacts but also in terms of gathering the empirical data which which exists you know at at the national and and regional level. So it it takes some work but I definitely think it's doable. Okay, I have a last question. I will ask Mr. Sultan Ramisod to be very short and concrete and also you Johan because then we have to move on. Sultan please. Thank you professor for your presentation. I'm representing Central Asia which is very prone to climate change and uh uh unfortunately we have been witnessing more frequent dust storms in central Asia which is very unusual to be honest especially during the winter time during my childhood for example in 1980s. Uh so we actually had some kind of events during the summer only but nowadays even in winter time. So professor could you please answer whether there is any uh scientific evidence about the correlation between the climate change and dust storms because it's really has a significant impact on the health of the humanity. Thank you. Yes. Thanks. So well the the short answer is is yes. Um but as always it's not a onetoone relationship. You have climate change causing high temperatures, more evaporation, more extreme precipitation um sequences which causes drought stress which leads can lead to to dust storms. But of course it's also interacting with land management. So, so you can never totally disentangle this and and I think this raises a question for the commission that I've had all along which is how far down let's say the the complex value chains do you go because we know that for example the global food system which depends on water on land on climate on temperature on nitrogen on phosphorus is in itself cause for 10 million people prematurely losing their lives every year and the largest driver of human unhealth. Do you go as far as addressing all the way to that point in a commission like this? It's it's a question, but I'm I'm just saying I think I think your your question here, Sultan, about dust storms and and climate change and how that links to human health is a very pertinent question and and it's complex, but it can be analyzed and also put put risk numbers behind it. But it's a question how far you want to go in the commission as well. Thank you, Johan. Sadly, we don't have time for more questions. I know there are more thoughts here at the table, but we have to move on. So, we might want to contact you again when we move on in our work uh not least on the issues connected to planetary stability because I think you have given us a lot of food for thought uh for our evaluations and deliberations later in the day. So, thank you so much for your input and and being uh such an inspiration. Even though the the future is bleak, it's still inspiring to see what we have to do. So, so I'm going to stay optimistic here. Even though the future is bleak. Thank you, Johan. Thank you so much. And good luck with with your deliberations. Thanks a lot and thanks for inviting me. And now we move on directly to Louisa Nobar, climate activist. But for over six years, Louisa Nober and Fridays for Future have brought hundreds of thousands of protesters to the streets. And in 2022, Time magazine included her among the 100 next leaders. In now by in Nobar versus Germany, she and others won a landmark constitutional court court ruling against the German government uh forcing the government to improve its climate law. And this was in 2021. And Louisa has published five best-selling books on the climate crisis, including her most recent one, Beginning to End the Climate Crisis. She is the host of the award-winning podcast 1.5 degrees. And currently, she's building a climate and democracy alliances all over the world. In autumn 2024, she sued the German government again to strengthen social security during the climate transition. So, Louisa, uh, a very warm welcome to you. Thank you for being with us today. The floor is yours. Um thank you so much for having me and for this very nice introduction. I hope you can uh see and hear me. Um otherwise okay there's no frenetic waving. Um beautiful. Yes. Um and um thank you so much for um for hosting this. Uh I as probably everyone in the room was very um cautiously listening to um Johan's fantastic remarks. And so building up on that um I would like to bring in maybe the more youth focused and activist perspective um and before doing so however I would like to introduce my mother um after the very nice introduction about my uh my work so far um I would like to uh move on to her my mother she is a she's a white woman from northern Germany she's born in 1955 which is one of the most uh promising generations uh in Germany there is a generation that thought the the worst is um gone and now you know things will go uphill and uh my mother today um is a woman in her 60s she is a health care worker has been so for more than 40 years she's been working in hospital she still does she ran an old people's home um she has spent her entire working life um taking care of people and particularly elderly people, people with severe um uh diseases and lately in particular people um with uh everything having to do with our breathing system who who suffer from uh from various um issues and uh my mother obviously finds herself in a very um yeah very uh broken uh health care system in a place like Germany which is one of the richest countries around and still hasn't figured out a way to to actually make sure that our healthcare system runs sustainably and uh just so my mother however finds herself to have a mother which is my grandmother who is 92 by now and every single summer um there's an anxiety creeping into my family over the question whether my grandmother will make it as a woman in her 90s it's not a it's not the easiest to grow older and but also we see that it's getting too hot for her and uh she's also living in Hamburg in a very privileged place uh in a very privileged reason region in the world and for her we know there's only so and so much we can do we can take care of her and we can visit her and we can make sure that she goes to the doctors but we cannot stop the heat waves from hitting and my mother on the other side finds her daughter um actually two daughters that she has me and my sister um who are fighting the climate crisis but find ourselves increasingly anxious about what this means for our world and for our future and how we are supposed to just live our lives in the light of a unprecedented crisis that we have never experienced um anywhere and uh which we now must consider the most the stupidest idea that humanity has ever embarked on. Ruining our only home and uh doing that in a very unjust and uh holy uh completely crazy way. So um and my mother is um why am I mentioning this? My mother um herself is what you would now consider on the front line of a dynamic that we're seeing around the world and even of in some of the most privileged places in the world where we do not only see systems, social systems, healthcare system that in that themselves aren't stable enough. But we see those very systems being hit firsthand by an increasing climate emergency. We see that people like my mother are on the front line when the next heat wave hits, when thousands of people will come into the hospitals, if they are among the lucky ones, um into a system that is already overstretched and uh burdened. And we find that very system right now being unable to respond to what is yet to come to respond to the increasing mental health crisis that is unfolding especially among younger generation when it comes to the climate emergency and we find ourselves almost not just being unable to respond but almost unable to even mention discuss and find a language for what is happening. So um I congratulate you very much for this commission. It's very much about time to prominently connect the climate emergency, the global instability, the planetary instability and the health crisis that we are facing. And yet I would like to um put attention on the fact that this approach connecting the climate crisis and and human and planetary well-being which might sound very logical. I would like to put attention on the fact that this itself is in today's world a hugely disruptive approach. Why is that so? Our entire global system when it comes to trade to our um markets, economies, how our political systems works, they rely on the assumption that our planet will be forever and that we can take and take and take from a planetary system without consequence that we cannot oversee. that is the the underlying assumption of our most dominant systems that we as humanity and especially the the west have established around the world. So acknowledging that there is a crisis unfolding that we cannot control and cannot oversee cannot comprehend and most of all right now cannot um slow down effectively that itself disrupts our very way of going around the world. Secondly, um maybe the most um one of the most uh dangerous assumptions after the idea that our planet will be forever. Um that is the assumption that we are separate from the world, that we can ruin livelihoods without ruining lives, that we can distinct planetary and human well-being. So connecting the climate crisis with the the state of a the health of people means very much very very much arguing against the notion that there is a world and there's a people and that these things are two se separate things. It means acknowledging that we are one that we breathe in what the tree next to us has breathed out just before us. And yet again that also very much contradicts um logics on which we have based economic assumptions and political programs. And thirdly of course um that moment that we consider health not to just be about bodies but about minds and souls. We acknowledge that health isn't that one thing that you can see that one broken arm or that one hip that isn't working anymore. But that health has to do with our mental state, with our mental and emotional well-being, which goes far beyond some of the most traditional and western established understandings of what health really is about and how we need to set up healthcare systems. So when discussing something that sounds very logical and causal even the idea that there is a connection between the climate emergency and the um and the state of the health of the people when discussing that it's crucial in my understanding to acknowledge that there is a systematic tendency to ignore that very connection because acknowledging that by ruining what we depend on we we ruin our own bodies, our own beings and our own minds. We must acknowledge that things have gone wrong and that some of the ideas that we celebrate most in a especially in the in the post-war West have faults, systematic faults that you can't just put a little tape on, but that you really need to name and rethink. And what does it mean for um for the commission? understanding. Um, first I would say get ready for what is out there because uh what is what is yet to come isn't going to be a work on sunshine. We're not all standing on the same side when it comes to planetary and human well-being. And there are forces out there that have every intention to take the last bit of profit that you can squeeze out of a valuable planet um just for uh uh for for increased profits of of fossil fuel industries. So there will be there will be interests to ignore the human effects of the climate crisis. There's an interest out there to sideline and gaslight what we are doing to ourselves by treating the world as we are. Secondly, I think the moment that we consider for there to be connection between the state of the planet and the state of the people, we must redefine expertise. The climate discourse has so far very much been dominated by a very set cluster of what are experts and what aren't experts. Yet the moment that we bring the human body and the human mind into this, everyone has a something to say and should be able to contribute because after all we are all bodies and we are all minds and we all bring unique expertises and values and ideas to the table. So I think it's I would very much urge to rethink how um how panels, how commissions, how um every single institution that you can think of will be um equipped when it comes to expertise. Are we talking about expertise in a pre-anthroposine way or in a anthroposine way? Um, next, um, we've been hearing from, uh, the panelists, uh, before that there is a there's a war on information. There's a war on truth out there. There is disinformation circling around. So, what any commission does is just as important as the story that is being told about it because we see that there is really a yeah, a war on discourse when it comes to climate and the planetary emergency. As long as the most prominent figures out there on the most prominent panels that they are claim that every measure of climate action would counter against what human interests are, as long as political calculations are made, that every environmental action is a tradeoff against human and societal interests, something will go wrong and we will still outplay health interests and planetary interest against each other. And finally um obviously um knowledge in this um instance isn't enough. So just explaining people that there might be a connection that they might be affected informing people about the consequence of floods and heat waves and all the dangers out there isn't enough if people do not know what to do about them. Um knowledge is power. They used to say I would say in today's world knowledge can be powerlessness because people will feel overwhelmed especially young people will feel overwhelmed they feel anxious and betrayed and they will not feel empowered just by more information provided. So this is really the moment to redefine um action and combine information with action and empowerment across all generations and especially starting with the most marginalized those most affected and those at the front lines. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Louisa. Um, we have a few minutes for questions and Hans Brunix, you uh have the floor first and then Carl, please. Thank you, Louisa, first of all, for your uh activism. I I think uh that's what we need on top of many other things that many of us are engaged in. I'm a professor. I teach uh people of your generation and indeed I find it increasingly difficult to uh understand how the knowledge that we cannot withhold from young people is not discouraging them. and you ended up by actually fundamentally critiquing the information deficit model of policym. We often start from the assumption that if policymakers have better information they would make the choices that are you know commensurate with that information which is not how politics works. It's about interests and power uh and and yeah knowledge can play a role in that. So my my question to you is the following. Uh how can this commission not only bring better and more clear knowledge but how can it be to use your words more actionoriented and empowering and actionoriented is not necessarily the same as empowering. So what would your advice be to us to be a more empowering type of commission in our conclusions? Thank you. Okay. Okay, I will remind everybody to be short and concrete. Louisa, before I give you the floor to answer, I would just like to remind our two commissioners that are online that they can raise their hand and pose a question if they want to. But Louisa, please. Yeah. Uh, brilliant question. Um, there's so much to say about this, so I will make it brief and just provide two um points. One is acknowledgement. So a lot of um a lot of especially you know well obviously older politicians come to me and they're very almost annoyed with a like a hopeless young young generation and to me it sometimes feel they're personally hurt by the idea that young people aren't just blindly looking forward to a future that has long been destroyed for them as it's in a a fr to the the humanities project which in fact it is I guess the the hopelessness of young people in a way is almost a boycott of a blinded belief that everything will be fine which we have been taught but obviously it's not you know working out and what we need for for now in the first step is really acknowledging that climate anxiety to to put to pinpoint it is science-based. It's it's very valid and it's very logical. And so instead of kind of uh running towards young people wanting to shake them and say hey could you just you know be happy for a moment acknowledge how severe it is acknowledge make case about what is happening to young people because it's not just that the state of emergency and um the the the sense of overwhelmingness is is is burdening people. It's also this feeling that there is no space to articulate that there is no language to to pronounce that there is no legitimacy for a very valid sensation that many young people um es especially young people are feeling really across the world. So first is acknowledgement. Um and the second thing is uh very much you made this crucial point about the the the myth of information deficit and we see some of the most well-informed people making very stupid decision when it comes to climate to put it that way. So you know we need to figure out different ways and one thing I I guess it's a very hopeful approach is combining learning with unlearning. So making a case, pinpointing how much we have been we as maybe say some European societies as as young people, how much we have been trained to ignore our own values. How we have been trained to just follow along a certain pathway even though we have big questions about that. Um how we you know tell young people don't litter but then we do it still and you know people will be young people will be annoyed about it but we then you know find them annoying. So we have uh been trained to ignore really the human pain that is coming along with uh with the climate devastation. We have long ignoring what people really need to be healthy. I mean you know ask any older person they will always tell you I want to I would have liked to spend more time outdoor and be more in nature and be with my friends and still redesign systems that hinder people from doing all these things. So I guess it's not just about rethinking how it could be new but also how to yeah unlearn practices, norms, cultural values, habits, um ideas of what is status, what is a good life and in particular what is a good health and a and a healthy body on a healthy planet. Thank you Louisa. I have three questions from the floor. Uh four questions and five minutes to have those questions and answers. So please everybody be very concrete. Carl, please. Well, first good to see you again, Louisa. Um, unfortunately, the interest of younger people in Germany out of the fight for future generation is going down when it unfortunately when it comes to climate change. My impression was when I made a major campaign against heat uh consequences, heat plan in Germany that this was of particular interest to older people but younger people were not uh fully engaged. Do you think that it would be wise if we would when it comes to climate and health focus in particular on let's say vegan lifestyles and nutritional issues? What's your suggestion how we can make the conx of climate and health attractive to young people to help us push the cause again Louisa? Um that again beautiful question. Good to see you K. Um very like as a very first intuition here I would really think about what is it young that young people care about. So um we know that heat waves are you know hugely dangerous in particular for vulnerable um parts of society. So it does make complete sense to run heatwave campaigns to inform people how they can equip themselves but maybe in particular target grandchildren and not youth because we all are grandchildren. We are scared about our grandparents. Um look at toddlers at young mothers at pregnant people. So tr figuring out how to not only inform people about something that is super scary but equip people with something that is actually practically useful for them and that goes on to every other question that goes on to diet question. So what is not just you know a moral piece of information to say hey um eat less meat whatever and it will be good but equipping people with knowledge about hey you have a right to a whatever that is what we do you have a right to a sustainable diet that is why we need to lower prices um this is how what you can do if you feel unsafe when we have the next heat wave or whatever or when we see floods happening. So really thinking about being of use because that is what people long especially young people haven't felt in a long time. They felt they had to show up and stand up for everything because the adults couldn't you know just stick to some basic climate targets that have have been decided by them. Now they're supposed to kind of pick up the trash and also justify why they do that and be happy over time. I think that's that's a bit of a calculation that is not working out. We need we need older generations to show up and to be of use for younger ones. And obviously um maybe that's a probably not a problem in in German politics only. Maybe decide if we want young people to be included or if we want young people to be the cheerleaders of uh adults deciding for them because I guess the letter isn't much of a fruitful option. Thank you Louisa for that very clear answer and uh Enrio Joanini you're next. Thank you. Let's suppose that we write a fantastic report that will be understandable punchy and so on so forth. How is the youth community in Europe going to receive it? Do we still have a youth community as we had years ago or the situation is different therefore the um let's say the youth community would not jump again unfortunately and go on the street just using our report of course I'm exaggerating a little bit but it's just to understand where your movement uh is now Louisa Uh very good question. So maybe just um let me just mention one aspect. I've always found it a bit irritating that when we were on the streets with millions of people that apparently some people assumed that this would just go on for years, you know, like children showing up every Friday for others to just do their job. Like it's a bit of a like, you know, young people considered to be like the babysitter of of a of a nation or of a you know, of of older people. I think that to me has always been a bit of a um funny concept and I think it has always been a disaster that young people felt that they had to kind of strike schools at all. Now there is still a lot of mobilizations going on but obviously in a different degree and that has not just to do with uh the climate backlash we're seeing across the world but it paradoxically it also has to do with some of the big successes that six years ago if there was anywhere someone who wanted to do something about the climate they felt the only thing they could do is go to the streets take the streets and now there are thousands of ways to get involved and there's thousands of pieces of the transition that are already happening where people feel like they can approach what is you know they can actually be of help on in a practical way. So it's it's I find it as someone who is still organizing mass mobilizations who has been organizing millions of people I find it beautiful to see that people have options these days um and yet what do you do with information? How do you bring them to people? I would honestly um think before publishing a report, ask communities what they need and in what form they would need and could work of that. Show up and you know be there and uh check in on on where people are and what would be of help for them. I would assume that maybe just providing people with some PDFs or pieces of paper might not be what they what they need right now, but maybe hosting a gathering of young leaders of maybe Europe and say, "Hey, we actually invite you all. We equip you. We train. We we provide a space for you to think about campaigns and all these things might be much more supportive. Thinking about how to apply certain pieces of information would also be beautiful. just you know all the statistics and models as a geographer myself obviously I'm a huge fan of it but oftent times what is missing is the concrete translation to what does it mean for policy information or what for an everyday life or for a campaign that would be needed to pressure certain pieces of politics or the economy so thinking about that application um dimension of that and thirdly I guess it's crucial to to understand that The beauty of connecting health and planet means bringing uh the human dimension back into the climate discourse which has long you know turned into something where we are all treated as kind of some engineers in front of an engineering problems and we just twist and tweak and then everything is going to be fine. But considering the pain that is that we all share because everything that we love and hate out there is at risk. uh considering how this is a huge moment to really bring people together to create moments of shared sad sadness and and loss but also to create space for the excitement about everything that is yet to come. All of that is up there and out there the moment that we recognize that is not just us and the world but there's a shared emotion that you know can really um bring us somewhere else. Thank you Louisa. I have two more questions coming from the floor. Sandrreen Dixon DLV, please. Thank you, Louisa. Lovely to see you. Um, fantastic opening in the storytelling of the intergenerational impacts of both health and climate. And coming back to Enrico and Carl's point, I think we're all very much aligned with you in terms of the importance of the role of your generation, but also the fact that you've moved on in certain ways. And that's exactly what you've described. So my question is the following. Knowing full well that we have a full onslaught in particular the relationship not only between climate and health but climate and democracy where do we bring in the voice of all of us in terms of democratic processes? So to pick up on your last point, is it the fact that actually we should have a citizen assembly or something to bring more people into this conversation after we've produced the report could be one angle. Another is coming forward with an intergenerational set of actions and calls to action to policy makers in particular at this time when we see a certain backtracking on some of our own proposals at the European level and and the third is the narrative development. Should we come back to you and a group of young people, influencers, etc. to think through the best narrative as we get ready to launch whatever we launch. Thank you Sandrine and Louisa. Answer. Well, well, I think that these are three amazing ideas uh which I would take as a package. Um of course um Tina, I didn't expect anything else um from you. Um maybe just uh maybe just to pick up on on the aspect that you mentioned about the storytelling because I prepared for this for this conversation and I you know I thought about my grandmother and my mother and uh my sister and my nephews and all of these things that we share and that was and I obviously it's I think about the climate and its impact every day. Um so it's for me it is something that is part of my work and yet I wonder whether there shouldn't be space for people to think about their very own connection to what is happening and that is what I meant earlier also with the silence with the lack of language in Germany I guess in many other places as well we call these heat these heat intense nights we call them tropical nights and it always bothered me a bit because that feeling that you cannot sleep and you almost feel like you suffocate in that heat that is around you like this blanket that you don't want is much more than a tropical night which to me sounds also like a I don't know free cocktail night um it is so much more and yet it is something that is mentioned in statistics or maybe on the radio but rarely in a human conversation and I wonder thinking about the Talanoa dialogue that we see at the climate conferences For instance, shouldn't there be shouldn't there be space for people to really explore how they are already affected or worried or how they see their loved ones being affected or how they you know struggle to envision a future for their own children which you know again burdens the mental state shouldn't there be a moment where we try to find a language and in terms of the telenoa dialogue which is this UN concept where you bring in decision makers and and civil society and you know people in a in a room together to share their story but also to think about their story again has this huge potential to bring in a human dimension. I speak to so many policy makers that give off the impression that they do not have a body or a child or a grandmother but they do also have a body and a child and a grandmother but it's rarely discussed. It's only that maybe after a heated discussion they come to me and say actually I'm also worried about my daughter. That is so wrong. there's something so deeply wrong about that. Shouldn't that be incorporated in our very formal a very official way of of of discussing what is happening? So maybe it is you know some few people sharing their stories but also maybe it's a model where people are invited um to develop um their own thinking their own language their own exposure to confront their own worries uh by listening to others by learning from the reports by acknowledging that there's a there there's a shared connection about these things thank you Luis and the last question from the floor Milindo please thank Thank you very much uh Louisa as you see around this table we might all be the age of your mother uh and we usually when we talk to our children is always the clean air that comes in. So speaking literally of the clean air now I was thinking do you have any idea what kind of innovative policies are missing at the European level in uh shaping and bringing together this nexus of climate and health related issues because as Sandrine said and then I heard a lot around the table even the European green deal some of those uh targets in there are really missing the implementation So I'm pretty much afraid that we will respect that 1.5 increase uh uh of temperatures uh and especially in some countries or the least developed European countries or the Balkans part of the European continent when it comes to financing uh and uh to uh the share into the GDP and budgets when it comes to to health care, climate change and especially on the understanding that talking about climate change is a luxury issue. It has to wait. It will happen in 25 years, 30 years beyond my political circle. So that makes things a bit more difficult. So do you have any any innovative idea on how in the near future to work upon nurturing this uh initiatives uh at the European level? Uh it's a big question, but I will have to ask you to be very short. I'm very Yeah, I was going to say that's a that's a fruity question out there. Um short answer. So um obviously so much to say about it to make it very very brief. Um the beauty about about connecting health and climate means really uncovering this whole fairy tales about the costs. So apparently that we cannot afford climate action because it's really the health crisis. Um the premature deaths you you mentioned the the air pollution that really twists this whole calculation around because we just cannot afford on a human level but also on an econ economic level to destroy everything that we need. Right? And also investing in clean air for instance. It's a it's an investment in every health care system because we know people that are ending up with my mother um are suffering and we know what that costs and it's um and maybe there are necessary policy options out there. I will provide an answer that actually didn't expect to come from me but rather from maybe someone like Johan. A lot of these things these days in my understanding really start with transparency and counting what we are seeing. So in Germany each year we guess how many heat related deaths there are. We just guess it but we still know that you know this isn't really counted for. So people who will lose their own grandmother to a heat related death will most likely not know about it. They will never share that story about how they lost their grandmother to a man-made heatwave or a man-induced heatwave. The same counts for air pollution where so far we have this one uh dramatic prominent case in London about a child dying from air pollution and you know air pollution caused asthma. And still there we also guess how many mothers each morning and parents each morning are fearing that their child on their way to school will catch asthma because of the air pollution. We just guess it. And yet this should be a huge interest group of parents, young parents, people who are worried every single morning. And we've just normalized that. We've just mainstream that we are gaslighting that emotion and we are making that part of a this brilliant calculation about the apparently so effective um and efficient uh traffic system that we've set up. So I would very much start with with counting these things for making sure people know that they are affected and how they are affected with making sure economists and policy makers know how much this costs, what a burden this is, how much hospital cases you would have in an average hospital that are climate related costs. Someone needs to figure that out or needs to make it more prominent if it has been figured out. Um so we can start somewhere and I guess that is I mean it's a huge task and so on and so forth but just imagine the potential of these numbers of that knowledge of people knowing their realities because someone tells them and someone informs them and this also empowers them to actually do something about it. Thank you so much Louis. Thank you for your very refreshing input and all those ideas that we have noted down. So, thank you so much for participating with us. We will now take a 5minut mobility break and um but you can also have coffee. Thank you so much. We will reconvene in five minutes. Thank you Louisa. Thank you. and start our program again. And uh we are running a little bit behind schedule. So we will start lunch a little bit later. However, I need to ask all of the commissioners to stick to the questions uh when we are posing questions so we can actually allow for more questions from everybody. But now we are going to listen to Jenny King, a senior fellow fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in the United Kingdom. Since 2019, Jenny King has led efforts to translate digital research around disinformation, hate speech, and extremism into frontline programming and response. And through the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, she co-founded Climate Action against this information, a coalition of over 50 organizations working to identify, analyze, and counter this threat worldwide. Janney has spearheaded investigations on climate denialism and discourses of delay in many contexts and co-authored several flagship reports. She also designed and formally ran the United Nations climate change conference intelligence units producing real-time monitoring of miss and disinformation around these conferences. She has testified before the European Parliament and regularly advises multilateral bodies and national governments. So Jenny, a very warm welcome to you and the floor is yours. And after your intervention, we will have a few minutes for some questions. Please, Jenny. Fantastic. Thank you very much for having me at this convening of the commission. I want to begin with story because so much of what we're talking about here is storytelling. So, I'd like everybody to take their minds back to March 2020 when news of the first COVID 19 lockdowns happening in Wuhan, China, are beginning to become international news. And a post appears on the social media website Twitter, now called X, which says that after COVID lockdowns are going to come climate lockdowns, and that this will be a way for governments to strip people of their freedoms and their civil liberties under the excuse of solving climate change. Now, this post was shared by a lobbyist associated with the Heartland Institute, a think tank in the US, which has been a bastion of climate denialism and climate skepticism for decades. Unfortunately, this particular post doesn't gain a lot of traction. It's a very busy time online, lots of things flying back and forth, and it disappears into the ether. But the lobbyists behind that post are very committed, and they spend six months continually trying to seed this language into the public domain until September 2020 when finally they get their moment. And suddenly this narrative is bleeding into a whole range of online and offline spaces. Everything from antivaxer groups on Telegram, the messaging app, to community Facebook groups to forums that are dedicated to existing conspiracy theories like QAnon or the New World Order. And crucially, they are being laundered to a mainstream audience by a range of often right-wing or far-right media outlets across television, radio, and print. Now, if you fast forward two years, climate lockdown has become what I would call a sticky conspiracy theory. And what I mean by that is is that it serves as the foundation for so much opposition to a range of different climate related policies. For example, climate lockdown was the connective tissue that brought people onto the streets of the UK to protest 15-minute cities rebadged as 15-minute prisons. It was also linked to opposition to heat pump installations in Germany. It has disrupted critical frontline response efforts in the wake of extreme weather events such as flooding or wildfires or droughts that have been taking place across Europe and in other countries. And in some of the worst examples, climate lockdown has been used as the material for death threats and credible threats of violence against everybody from meteorologists and weather people to journalists, public figures. So this isn't something that just stayed in the online space. It metastasized. It distorted. It spiraled out of all control. And now you really cannot put the climate lockdown genie back in the bottle. Now why am I telling you this particular story? In part, I think the climate lockdown is the best case study that we have of how our information ecosystems are evolving and the kind of challenges that both communicators and policy makers face. It's also very revealing about the ways that social media are changing knowledge sharing and identity and community formation and how you know we you really have to adapt to that new reality. But the other reason why I'm saying this story today is because last year I participated in a roundt that was hosted by the European Commission on managing climate risks and I asked a room of a hundred top level policy makers, scientists and frontline actors who had heard of climate lockdown and in that room maybe two people put up their hand and I think that that is extreme extremely sh scary scary Because what it shows is that the people who are responsible for implementing a climate response, for interpreting the science for the public, and crucially for generating consensus and public buyin are fundamentally disconnected from the narratives that real people are seeing in their everyday lives and that they are not considering those psychosocial dynamics as they try to move forward with mitigation and adaptation. The question that I often get asked next is why does it feel like things are reaching such a fever pitch now? And I don't want to rest too long on this slide because I think it will be very obvious to the people in the room and online today. But miss and disinformation thrive in times of crisis. It is the fertile soil that allows these narratives to take root and to influence public life. And it is just a fact that we are currently living through five, if not 10 intersecting generational crises that are kind of creating a crucible for these stories. The one that I do want to just touch upon for a second because I really cannot overstate is the ongoing legacy of the pandemic. And I think people sort of recognize that it's it's had long-term economic effects or it's changed the labor force. that's changed people's relationship with public health. But actually the consequences of the pandemic far extend public health and the fear and the very legitimate grievances and trauma that emerged during that period are being weaponized to move people into opposition against climate action and a whole other range of really vital social and justice issues. So then the question is who are the people spreading these narratives and what do they stand to gain? think you know there is sometimes an assumption and particularly in the European Union that climate change is a kind of settled issue and indeed if you look at polling you can see that upwards of 80 or 90% of citizens do believe in the reality of climate change and they do think in some form that governments need to be instigating some kind of action. But there is a huge difference between recognizing a problem and actually having a mandate to deal with that problem and talk about the practicalities of policies whether it's grassroots level stuff, community level stuff, national or multilateral. And at the moment that is where information warfare is being targeted in that gap between recognizing the problem and coming up with a meaningful policy platform that you know has the buyin of the general public that is really going to meet the scale and severity of the challenge. And if you think about the people who kind of have a stake in delaying climate action, I sometimes feel that the conversation is very very narrowly defined by a traditional set of actors. They would be the actors on the left hand side of this slide. They're actors that I have called stakeholders in the carbon economy. So these are people who benefit from our continued reliance on and investment in fossil fuels and polluting technologies. And it's the kind of actors that you would expect, big oil and gas companies, plastics lobbies, and their universe of proxy entities, think tanks, advisers, etc. But what makes this moment quite so difficult to confront is the way that that universe of actors is colliding with a very very different universe that I am calling stakeholders in the attention economy. And these are the people who have a an incentive or a motive to use social media and the online space to generate engagement. They have identified a way of producing revenue of increasing their social standing and their branding by capitalizing on outrage. So sometimes this is referred to as the grifter economy or the outrage economy. And what I would like to interrogate a little bit more in the coming 10 minutes is the ways that the fossil fuel lobby has actually consciously and cynically centered climate change as part of the culture wars in order to engage a new audience. And part of the reason that they're doing that is for exactly the slide that I showed previously, which is that they realize they've lost some of those original public relations battles. There are a far greater number of people who believe in the realities of climate planning. So some of the arguments that they had been using since the 1970s no longer have quite as much social capital as they did. So instead they needed to pivot and they needed to look at a way to politicize climate response. And who were the best people to do that? These new actors operating across mainstream and French social media. And all of those actors are being enabled by the way that social media is currently designed and the fact that it is optimized for engagement. You know, our social media platforms are not designed to promote safety or to promote constructive dialogue or to promote high credibility sources. They are designed to get the most clicks and likes and eyeballs because that is how these companies sell advertising space. And so that ecosystem is what we're confronting in 2025 and is far more complex than just thinking about your traditional fossil fuel funded lobbying and kind of corruption and corporate malfeasants efforts. I think what is really really crucial to bear in mind is that as this new universe of actors has come into the climate space and co-opted climate issues is that it means millions of people are now being exposed to climate and disinformation in their everyday browsing who may never have come across it in the past. You know previously even 5 years ago the climate sector was quite used to talking to itself. It was a pretty insular world where whether you were for climate action or against climate action, it wasn't really a mainstream public topic. That is no longer the case. And you can end up in a space of extreme climate denial when your starting point was something completely different. So we have seen influencers in the manosphere, people like Andrew Tate who you may have heard of talking about climate denial or associating fossil fuels with masculinity. As I mentioned before, we have seen opposition to the environmental movement in antivax groups or linking uh hostility to public health efforts with hostility to climate efforts. On Instagram, we have also seen it feature amongst wellness influencers. So you know people who promote healthy living uh or crystals or re-engaging with with spirituality quite often they are very skeptical of climate science and we have also seen it come up in formal far-right political groups and in outright extremist and neo-Nazi groups. All of them are finding something worthwhile or something relevant for their audience within the climate. And I what I really want to to emphasize once again is the interplay between these two universes of actors. So it's very easy to think okay well you know an Andrew Tate he doesn't have anything to do with Exxon Mobile or BP he is kind of organically sharing this content and in some cases that might be true but it is also the the truth that the fossil fuel lobby has engineered that dynamic. They have spent a decade politicizing climate action and centering it within the culture wars. And they have also put a lot of financial and human resource into bolstering this right-wing media ecosystem, not just through official outlets, but also through these kind of new digital and cultural influences. And the way that that often works is that they use their think tanks or their lobbyists to create new narratives like climate lockdown. They then seed them into the mainstream and they give it uh a kind of they make it look respectable because it's coming from, you know, coming from a think tank. And then once it has penetrated the mainstream, they no longer need to be architects of that information campaign because suddenly they do have these ambassadors who will take those talking points and spread them to their audience in a way that feels a lot more authentic and that is far more likely um to penetrate a lot of different diverse audiences across the population. So it isn't the case that you have orchestrated deception coming from an oil and gas company and then somebody on Tik Tok or Telegram or Instagram talking about how climate change is a hoax. These two things are very very intimately linked and those links can be either formal through you know financial uh payouts or or bolstering uh ecosystems or advertising on certain websites or it can be informal by creating these narratives that can then be used and picked up by online influencers. I just wanted to touch very briefly on what kinds of narratives are having the most resonance with with the general public. And I often call these four things on screen the four horsemen of you know the disinformation apocalypse. And it can very neatly be summarized as not me, not like this, not now or too late. So not me saying yeah sure climate change maybe it exists but it's not our problem to solve it. it's China's problem or it's America's problem or it's India's problem. They're the big polluters. Not like this is sure we believe in climate change. We're not crazy. But all of the policy proposals that are on the table are unrealistic. They're going to bankrupt society. They don't fit with our traditional way of life. They're going to strip you of your freedoms. So, we need climate action, but we don't need this kind of climate action. Emphasizing the downsides or the not now is another extension of that. Yes, we need to solve climate change, but is this really the right moment? We're going through an economic crisis. There's a war in Ukraine. There's a war in Gaza. We just we need to wait a few years and then we'll have the resources available to do it. And finally, the last one which I really think is growing in popularity, which is, you know what, the scientists are right. the situation is just too severe and our systems are too reluctant to change. Let's just give up and enjoy life while we can. And there are some really amazing taxonomies that exist online that give you a more detailed breakdown of, you know, 50 different narratives, but they all fit broadly within these four buckets. And I just wanted to flag that the coalition which we helped to to form called climate action against disinformation has a resource available on its website where it goes in quite granular detail into ways that climate obstruction is playing out in different European countries and they have adapted a book that was produced by the climate social science network which I think could be a really helpful resource for the people on the call today and that's available for free at the website c a.info. But just to return very briefly again to this d to this diagram. I know that we're going to have some questions about solutions and what we can do about this in the Q&A. And my opinion is that we cannot solely focus on strengthening the good. We also have to weaken the bad. And what I mean by that is that there is a huge amount of work to be done in improving forms of communication and public outreach for policy makers and for really engaging them in a participatory conversation about mitigation and adaptation. But that is never going to be enough. And you could put all of the commission's resources into doing that work and you would still struggle to compete in the online space for all of the reasons that I have highlighted. So at the same time it is absolutely critical that you undermine the economy for disinformation that you raise the barrier to entry for producing this kind of content for sharing this kind of content that you change the incentives that exist in the online space because otherwise you're always going to be drowned out by the kinds of divisive and polarizing and hateful posts that rise to the top of our news feeds. But I began with a story and I would like to finish with a story. There is a little bit of an assumption within the climate sector and I've heard it a number of times that as people experience the realities of climate change or indeed pandemics and public health crisis that they are by default be going to become more supportive of action. And actually what we have seen time and again is that these events are really disempowering and terrifying for people and that the fear of those moments is just as easily used to steer people towards the most extreme and outlandish conspiracy theories and forms of polarization. And that any response to this has to put at its center individual agency. If you want to combat stories like climate lockdown, which really speak to people's fear about the future and their power to control their own lives, then you have to make the story of climate action one of agency and one of both individual community and collective power. Thank you very much. Well, thank you Jenny. I think you have given us a lot of food for thought. uh in this in this intervention. So now the floor is open for questions from the commissioners. Um and I think uh Sandrine Dixon Declare has raised the first hand. So Sandrine, I will just pass the floor to you. Jenny, thank you. That was fabulous. Um frightening but fabulous. And I think many of us are absolutely cognizant of some of the um ways in which we've gotten the narrative wrong. You finished by stating that crisis is disempowering fear drives disinformation and desire and denial calls for action must promote then a very different way forward. And you also indicated that we can't just um reinforce the good. There is a big tension within the climate community to try to bring people out of despair and paint the possibility of an alternative future. How do we fight fire with fire? I think I'm going to be very direct here. That's the point of not only talking about the bad, but realizing that those that are on the bad side are pretty bad. And they're ready to engage in the type of warfare that we've seen in fueling climate denialism, pulling out of net zero commitments in terms of the oil and gas sector, etc. I we've been talking about Cambridge Analytica for good. You seem to be moving a little bit in that direction. Can you give further information around how we could use AI and disinformation as a way for all of us to ensure that we inject the right type of not only right information but influence people in the same way that Cambridge Analytica did. Thank you Sandrine. Before I pass the floor to Jenny, I will be closing the floor for questions in a few seconds. I have three more questions coming from the room. So if you want to ask a question, try and take some notes so I don't forget each one. Um, so I would say a couple of things. The first is that the far right have functionally just put a lot more long-term investment into their communications infrastructure. Like if you look at the best funded, highest traction accounts on social media in the top 10, like nine of them are farey actors who oppose climate action. So a long-term strategy for engaging these people, but also not exerting too much control. Because I think some of the problems are that you just go, "Oh, we're a government. Let's engage influencers, and influencers will be our proxy with the public." But it is the reality that if you're an influencer and you start working with a government, it immediately undermines your credibility. So you have to strike a really careful balance between giving them an incentive to participate in a program like you know come and meet a cool person and learn about the climate crisis. But then you are pretty handsoff and you allow that process to be a bit more decentralized and for them to create content in a way that feels much much more resonant and like consistent with their brand as opposed to just saying, "Oh yeah, we're going to have kind of on staff a group of Tik Tockers or Twitch stars who are going to work for us." Because I don't actually think that's how it plays out. I also think that often when that is suggested, there hasn't been a lot of thought put in to why those influencers would have any interest in engaging with a program of that nature. Like what do they stand to gain? How can you build a little bit more to their own value propositions, the way that they present themselves to their audience? How could this be relevant with the sort of things they already talk about? And to be a lot more um to be a lot more expansive in the kinds of people that you work with. So, you know, beauty influencers and bloggers, travel influencers, the fossil fuel lobby are co-opting those people. They're working with celebrity chefs to get them to promote gustos. They're working with travel bloggers to get them to stand in front of petrol stations. We need to do that kind of stuff and come up with a kind of alternative reason why that would be sexy for them. Um, the other thing I would say, oh, I had another thought. Uh, infrastructure Ah, it's gone from my mind. This is why I need to take my next come back later. It might come back later. Ask the next question and it will come back to me. Yeah, but I have a question now from my Linda. Please, Milinda. Well, Jenny, thank you uh very much. And you really were spot on speaking about disinformation and misinformation, not misinformation because this is the total difference in here. So and we all know that whenever or wherever the populism has to succeed they will go on disseminating and disseminating fake news and disseminating things that are not true. So my question is is quite naive and simple in here. We might be hellbent to produce the greatest report ever seen uh during the last uh decade but at the very end we will need enough support and maybe I I'm just proposing something stupid again in here that we might open a small of window on how to follow up from this report and on when it comes to the communication. So will you be ready to help us to turn the scientific jargon of the report into uh a language that is easily understood relatable for uh the most part of the society and and citizens. I think this might really be helpful even like as an annex of this report. So I know maybe you don't want to give uh uh much of uh of uh let's say working hours to any of us but uh I can volunteer on that. So this is something I always tend to tell people we should explain it in the language that my mom and my father and then kids can understand it and that I don't want to enter in this in that page because you'll need like proposal for on the education system like preparing some curricula that might be really bright in bringing climate and health nexus together because as we saw and based on science we are going to be pretty doomed in 10 years not in 20 years. So if we don't start developing great ideas from now even when it comes to the education then AI is going uh is going to ruin all of us. Thank you. Thank you Jenny. Yes. So firstly of of course I would be happy to support and I would say that there are a number of organizations within our coalition who are specifically doing research in what is most compelling for a persuadables audience. And the persuadables group is generally consists of about 70% of the general public. They're also sometimes called the missing middle. So with communications and you see this happening from governments all over Europe at the moment is that they are only ever speaking to try to persuade the most extreme ends of the spectrum and they and instead you know why are you spending your time talking to people who are never going to be convinced that top 10% who don't believe that climate change exists and you know regardless of how you frame your argument are unlikely to be supportive of climate action when instead you have this enormous group of people in the middle who either don't know enough to care or just need something framed as you said in the kinds of terminology that they understand and there's a couple of groups that I would be happy to connect you to who've done research for example on community level advertising and what sort of arguments really really hit to the core of things that people care about and are scared about and very often it's you know opportunity access to opportunity for themselves and for their loved ones and community power as I was talking about sreen the Other thing that I was going to say of the kind of fighting fire with fire is I still think that a lot more work could be done to expose the anatomy of these disinformation campaigns. So there is way way too much fixation on trying to create counternarratives to every new conspiracy theory or piece of disinformation. And it's a losing battle because in any given day you're going to see 10,000 new outlandish fake claims appear on social media and some of them will rise above the surface of kind of critical exposure and others won't. What's much more useful is showing how specific actors are manipulating and willfully deceiving the public because people don't like to be taken for fools and you know showing financial links where they exist. I have to say that work is really hard. Those financial audit trails are incredibly difficult to unearth but you can show informal links. So you know recently last year we produced a piece of research the coalition about how the Russian state the Kremlin was funding a number of prominent far-right influencers in the US and the majority of those influencers happened to be climate deniialists or climate skeptics. So you can immediately draw a through line to say, you know, Putin's government is actively trying to deceive the US public about climate change. And who are they using to do it? Your favorite right-wing influencers on social media or on podcasts. And so, you know, that kind of it's sometimes called inoculation work um or pre-bunking where you show people the tactics that are being used to deceive them rather than just trying to debunk or fact check specific claims. I think that you know putting a bit more emphasis on that could also yield a lot of results. As you can feel Jenny, there is a lot of interest in the room. But I have two more questions from the room uh that need to be very short and concise and so do your answers. So Enrio Gioanini, please the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Extremely interesting also for my work in Italy and um I think that I will contact you soon. But uh uh beside that is really the task of the commission to try to do what Jenny is proposing or is a task for who uh this is uh something that we have to clarify because who is associated in people's mind especially in those who fight against uh science and so on as those who didn't manage the pandemic as they should. What I mean the uh in that word that you are describing who is not really the top of the independent and so on institutions that they can imagine. Therefore, I think that uh um we have to understand but this is a discussion for us where is value added and I think is new evidence, new proposals, new thinking but if if we try I'm not very good in this uh um type of work as a university professor if we try to um use a very innovative language or fight against the those who will oppose to us. I think that we risk to be a little bit naive. So my question is would you recommend us to stick as commission to stick to evidence proposals and then then someone else will eventually use to fight against the others or should we really embark in the battle that you are talking about? Jenny, please. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure that I'm necessarily the best person to ask that just because you need a very detailed knowledge of the different mechanisms that exist within the commission, but what I would say is that you can't just create evidence and expect it to filter down to the people that need it without doing some of that work. So it might not be the case that you can do all of the public relations work to convince the public or to generate that buyin, but I would absolutely say that the commission needs to be developing and brokering sustained long-term links with people at the grassroots and that you need to think a lot as I said a lot more expansively around who those actors might be and this includes in the offline space. So you know I would really encourage the commission to work maybe through intermediaries to engage trade unions or to engage religious leaders or to engage social workers and medical health care professionals because they are the people who actually interface with the public on a day-to-day basis and who retain trust when as you say all of these traditional institutions have really lost the trust and the faith of the public. But you can't expect somebody to act as that bridge. You know, you need to do some of the leg work. And that might not be you engaging the religious leaders, but you might work with the middle stage of that bridge, the people who have access to those networks at a local level, and that you are translating and interpreting what is going to be a very very complicated evidence base for people that might have very very minimal scientific background. And so I would say that there is an obligation on the commission to do that. Um because as we know there are a thousand brilliant cutting edge reports that sit online that no one will ever read because either they don't know they exist or they're not in a language that they can understand. Um so if you're not going beyond that and thinking a little bit about your communications and outreach strategy, then I I worry that some of that work is going to be um is going to fail to reach its potential. I think I will pass the floor now to Katuna Gogalat uh for the last question and then we might have a small short intervention from WH on the communication and and what Enrio was asking about. But Katuna please. Thank you so much Madame Chair. Thank you Jenny for um a really interesting uh intro I mean um presentation and great points you have raised. Some of my questions were already asked and I will not um stop on that. So you mentioned that you have noticed kind of the pri the prioritization of climate change and even through social media if five years ago it was more more noticeable to talk about that now. So um what do you think what are some key uh reasons and uh for that what in your from your uh experience is it kind of um trend of um rightwing politics worldwide um it's more lobbying for some special specific interest for fos fossil fuel um use or something like that. So what in your opinion is are key causes for that? It's that's one question. And another short question it's not short but and um if you can answer shortly um from your experience if you have encountered the cases when in the name of um climate action uh there is misuse of renewable energy sources kind of hydro power um and saying that okay this is clean energy use as much water as possible which as all we know is not that good because if it's not done in a sustainable way uh it may cause not less worse results than climate change itself. Thank you and yeah keep it keep it quick. Um, so the last the last question I I'm probably not the right person to comment on that, but the example that I will give is AI. And I know that AI will be talked about a lot today, both as a threat and as a solution, but just to give you an example, there is an AI data center that is being proposed in the UK currently that would use as much energy as over a million homes. And these things are always touted as being, you know, success stories of economic growth and opportunity. And the AI industry is doing exactly what the fossil fuel industry did, which is getting everybody to kind of drink its Kool-Aid as being a silver bullet solution to all of the world's problems and really stifling the story that talks about their energy use, their water use, their land use. And quite often what they are doing is they are buying up re renewable energy sources. So in the US uh the tech companies have commissioned for the next 20 years entire nuclear power stations for example or entire sections of the solar energy grid but there is only limited renewables capacity. So they're able to tell a story that says oh but we use green sources. But what they are doing is denying those green sources to the rest of the public who then have to maintain their reliance on fossil fuels. So I think there is a very very dangerous dynamic playing out where the AI industry is just completely suppressing the story about its relationship to fossil fuels and to the climate crisis. And on your first question I mean so many things shifted the dynamic but one is that this was a very orchestrated effort by the fossil fuel lobby. As I said, they needed a new strategy. They saw that outright climate denialism was no longer going to be as successful as it had been from the 1970s until the early 2010s. And so they spent a lot of time and a lot of money politicizing climate action. And quite often they've done that alongside other polarizing issues. So you will see very very commonly now what is called issue stacking. So, a post that denies climate change and also says, you know, the US election was stolen, there are only two genders, um, you know, abortion is abortion is murder, you know, it's it's combining climate with all of these other things that are compelling topics for the general public. And so, they have consciously and very cynically created that dynamic. And then something happened organically online which was that these influencers saw that if they posted climate skepticism or climate denial they got a lot of engagement. And if the main thing that you're working towards is people's likes and comments and clicks because that's how you create money then you have an incentive to spread this kind of content. So I would say it began with a kind of conscious effort from the fossil fuel industry and then it was taken up as an opportunity by people operating in the outrage economy across social media. Thank you Jenny for that answer. I'm just going to allow Mr. Rob Butler from WH Europe 30 seconds intervention on an earlier subject topic. Thanks very much chair. indeed to Commissioner Giovanini. Um the point where you raised uh what's the role of this commission versus the role of who we have an opportunity to discuss this afternoon, but I wanted to give you a very clear example of where an independent global commission has elicited rec or nudged encouraged recommendations to WHO action in this space. And it's very concretely related to what we're discussing today because the global vaccine hesitancy commission that was established 2018 recommended that we exposed and um uh uh uncovered the techniques that the antivaxers were using and we took and that was a recommendation to WHO from an independent commission. We joined up with Airfoot University and the School of Social Psychology and actually developed an algorithm to tackle vocal vaccine deniers, which is what we called them at the time, which is exactly what Jenny's just been explaining. How we false expectations that are put over by the antivaxers, uh, fake scientists that are put forward, an algorithm that allows you to expose in public the techniques they're using so that the public understand that they're being duped, that they are being fooled. And it was it is to this date still one of the most downloaded tools that we've ever developed. Well, we've developed in the 15 years I've been with WHO. And it was born in a commission like this. So I just wanted to give you that example of where we would welcome you recommending WH action in this space that is within the realms of the commission. I just wanted to add that for you. Thank you, Rob, for that intervention. And thank you, Jenny, for a very informative intervention and great answers. And we might want to uh seek your assistance again during our work. So, thank you very much for being with us today. Thank you so much for having me. I hope the rest of your day is successful. And now we move on to Dr. Yseph Maranto a senior research professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and Emiritus Professor of Medicine at Pompe Fabra University both in Spain and co-chair of the Lancet Countdown in Europe. And Dr. Dr. Yseph M. Anttop Bokeh is a resp respiratory physician and epidemiologist whose research has focused on the epidemiology of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with a special interest in the environmental determinance and prevention of these diseases. In recent years, he has increasingly dedicated himself to adapting environmental health strategies to the fight against climate change and promoting the concept of planetary health at local and international levels. So, Joseep, you are there. Um, a very warm welcome. You have the floor and after your talk, we will have a few minutes for questions from the commissioners. But please, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Honorable Prime Minister and their commissioners, it's great pleasure and honor to be part of this panel and to just join this wonderful discussions and presentations uh with a focus on uh the the health impacts that the climate crisis is already having. Um, I would like today to convey you my full conviction that the climate crisis is probably uh the greatest threat and at the same time one of the greatest opportunity for public health that we have had in our recent history. I'm saying this uh from my background as a physician as you say uh in respiratory medicine and public health. For 14 years I've been devoting my academic and professional life to study how the environmental factors affect human health and doing research and teaching. And as physician my motivation in doing this work has been always been providing knowledge that is useful to alleviate the suffering of the patients and to prevent diseases and especially for the people that it's uh more disadvantaged and probably today I am here because about 10 years ago I came to this idea of the planetary health. So after more than 40 years teaching doing research in environmental health I understood a new way of seeing human health that is this idea of planetary health that hasn't been already introduced this morning by professor Johan Rostrom. basically this idea that we cannot understand human health today if we don't see human health as part of the health of the planet and this is the point in which I want to articulate my presentation well in presenting you uh the evidence we have about the uh health impacts of uh the climate change I would focus on the 2024 report of the Lancet countdown on health and climate change. In 2020, I was honored to join the la lounge of the European branch of the Lancet Countdown on Climate Change and Health. The Lancet Countdown is a global initiative, very large, more than 300 experts from more than 100 institutions and it's an initiative that has been launched together with the Lancet and the welcome trust to provide updated evidence on which are the impacts of climate change and health and which are the solutions as well. Uh I I I was saying I had the honor to join the the European lounge which was established uh in 2021. In this European lounge we are using 42 different indicators from different domains. I will show to you. But I want to stress that this platform is an alliance of more than 40 academic institutions with some seat funding from the welcome trust and I will concentrate in one of the aspects of this platform because I understood that this is the focus of your today's session in this commission which is basically to review about the impacts and probably you will have opportunity to go to the other sections of our report in the future. Well, as I said in this platform where we are doing a huge effort to take data modeling expertise from the scientific area and to translate this knowledge into indicators that could be useful to monitor how the situation is evolving. And it can be usable to support people that are designing programs and implementing programs and policies. In the platform we have indicators in five different dimensions. One is impact I mean impact together with exposure vulnerability. Then we have two other sections. One is for mitigation and the other one is for adaptation. And we have two other crosscutting sections. one is about economics and finance and the other one it's about uh uh society and politics. As I say I will focus basically on the first section that is about the impacts exposure and vulnerability. I I must say alarmingly that all the indicators we monitored in this section are showing that the situation is worsening. And I will put a bit of attention to one area of these indicators which to my view it can be taken as the top of the iceberg and this is the heat related mortality. One of the indicators we have that you can see here it's a heat related mortality. Well, there is a huge modeling behind this indicator. But the modeling is very robust. It's using updated data. And what you can see here both in the left and in the right is that the red color which points to increasing heat related mortality is spreading to white areas of Europe. And what you can see also is that in the right wine the red is more intense than in the left. The left is for men, the right is for women. And what the indicator is telling us is that the heat related mortality in Europe is twice in women as compared to men. When with this indicator we compared the more recent decade uh 201322 versus the previous decade. What we can see is that in average we have increase about 17 death per 100,000 inhabitants every year in this decade due to the increase in temperature. Well, these figures sometimes are difficult to understand or to put in perspective, but this is what explains these two figures that you also have in this line. Summer 2022, Europe 61,000 heat attributable death in Europe. Summer 2023 47 thou 47,000 death attributable to heat in Europe. Well, these increases are happening despite two decades of implementation of heat protection plans in Europe, probably the continent that has more advanced policies in this field. And nevertheless, the toll of death in this summers is disproportionate for the level of development of our societies. Most of these deaths as you I'm sure you know are affecting older people. People that it's beyond 65 or beyond 70 very frequently people that have chronic diseases are taken several medications. Well, why are why are we having such increase in mortality uh in a continent like Europe? And this is to some extent explained by these other two indicators. In the left you want you have one for bul for vulnerability and in the right you have one for exposure. And the simple answer of why we are having this toll mortality in the summers in Europe is one side because we are becoming more vulnerable as a society. Longevity is increasing, age is increasing, life expectancy, the prevalence of chronic diseases is increasing, the number of people that is taking chronic medication is increasing. And this is part of the vulnerability. And when we monitor this uh during uh this years, we are seeing from blue to red in the left that the vulnerability index is increasing. This vulnerability index includes not only age but also the prevalence of chronic diseases the type of diseases like cardiovascular or respiratory that are more uh susceptible to the effects. So vulnerability is increasing and what you have in the right side is the exposure to heat waves in the population over 65 in the last decade compared to the previous one. And again what you can see from blue decrease in exposure to red increase in exposure that we are moving to the intense red and the exposure it's increasing in some areas in Europe more than 200% in the last decade compared to the previous one. So this is a very accelerated trend. So this increased exposure together with increased vulnerability explains that we are having an increased mortality in the hot summers in Europe in the recent years. I must say that when in another indicator we monitor which of the more 800 areas that we analyze in Europe have seen an increase in heat related mortality in the last decade 94% of the areas that we monitor have seen an increase obviously much larger in the southern Europe some parts of central Europe and western Asia less in the northern countries but 94% of the regions have seen an increase in heat related mortality. Well, as I said to you at the beginning, we have 14 indicators that look to the relationship between climate change and uh human health. And here is a a short summary of some of the other impacts. You have risky hours for physical activity are increasing. Many people need to do physical activity to keep both the physical and the mental health and people from all ages and doing physical activity outdoors in some seasons and some parts of the year is becoming more risky. Labor supply has decreased due to uh to warming temperatures in Europe. Climate suitability for vector board diseases like bibio, well, snail, deni, chikonguya, tiki, malaria, ticks. The climate suitability for all these vectorbor diseases has been increasing in Europe and we are having more outbreaks and outbreaks are becoming more uh likely to happen. And if we take into account uh episodes like like several uh uh floods and and droughts uh about 12 million people additionally in 2021 have been affected by episodes of moderator severe food insecurity. So this gives you a number of other impacts that we are able today to monitor regarding the relationship between human health and the health uh uh the the the climate change and the human health. Well, I I I I was recommended to to keep focused on the impacts but but it's very difficult to separate the impacts uh from the solutions. And I and I wanted to put in context these impacts that we are seeing with the delay that we have in Europe on uh adaptation actions and you can see here one of our indicators. This is an indicica an indicator on uh adaptation. It cames from a survey that conducts the Wua. uh by the way many of the data that we are see we are using is also related to activities in WO in Europe and in the in the European environmental agency and the observatory of climate change and health in Europe. And in this indicator you can see that there were 22 countries who responded to the survey on the national adaptation plans. And the 22 countries only 10 say that they had conducted a national vulnerability and adaptation assessment. Only 10 of 22. And more uh concerning only two of them reported that these assessments had an influence in the policies and in the resources and this is consistent with many other data showing that we are delayed in action. This is important, especially important because obviously we are seeing increasing impacts in human health. But more and more we know about solutions. We have solutions. There are many solutions available and unfortunately we are very delayed in implementing these solutions. Well, I want to touch about a couple of crosscutting issues that I think are tremendously important. And one is equity. There is a lot of evidence that the impacts that I've been showing you affect much more to disadvantaged population. they affect much more to people with low income, with migrant uh ethnic minoritized people and other disadvantaged groups. Obviously, there are also different differences in geographical distribution. Southern Europe, parts of Central Europe, Western Asia are much more affected by heat and northern countries are more affected by the increase in biblio antiques climate suitability. But the difference differential distribution the differential social distribution of the impacts is a very important and concerning issue. I just wanted to put you a figure that cames from the more recent worldwide inequalities report showing that when you take the population in Europe and you compare the 50% of the population that is responsible of less emissions compared to the other groups the 40% in the middle and the 10% in the top 50% that are the bottom emitters emit about five tons of CO2 per person which is not hugely far from what we need to do from the Paris agreement. Well, these 50% that are the lower emitters are the one that more affected by the impacts and are the ones that have less capacity, less resources, less agency for adaptation. And then you can see that today the impact of the climate change in human health has become a social justice problem. to emphasize this point uh and professor Johannstrom touched on that in his presentation in one of the last papers of the Earth Commission when you look to the aerosols which one of the boundaries and you look to air pollution as part of the boundaries and then you look to the impact that air pollution is having today in humans. The commission came to the conclusion that taken into account the social distribution of impacts probably one degree must be the threshold not 1.5 and we are talking about two in the Paris agreement well this may be very aspirational I understand but this is based on an equivocal scientific evidence well just you have to conclude very soon. This is this is the last slide and this is just to emphasize you that I have been presenting you a lot of data a lot of indicators most of them are all of them are very robust but this is just part of the uh problems that we can understand there are many others that we don't have enough data and this slide is just to uh insist in that we have in Europe many gaps in the evidence and the data for climate change. I just summarized here some of them. I am not going for the sake of time to go why by one but to emphasize that this is an area that needs a strategic effort and investment. Science is part of the solution because it's every day updating us about the problems and updating us about the solutions. But science needs to be nurtured by good data and infrastructures and this needs uh a strategic investment. With this I will finish my my presentation just this is the last message for the Lancet comedown. Climate change and health is a crisis today now it's going to persist for the coming decades. We have solutions. This is the good news and it gives hope. Solutions will improve in the future and just we are very delayed with the solutions. We need to scale the ambition and the political capacity to implement these solutions and I am looking with much hope to the work that you will do in this commission to see this in the future an area of reinforce policies uh for all of us. Thank you so much for your attention. Thank you so much, Joseep. And we have time for two questions. Okay, Enrio Giovenini, please. Thank you. As we are talking about statistics, of course, I'm very excited and uh thank you very much. I think that the use of data which are disagregated by territory or by uh social groups are extremely important and I think that should be fully used in our report just to take our recommendations down to the earth and to what people feel and experiment also. I have a question. I I like very much your um focus or your u emphasis on the solutions. Would you recommend us to call our uh to use as a title of our report solutions for or do you think that would be a little bit too much because this would set completely the tone of our recommendation instead of what we have discussed before on scaring people. Thank you Joseph. I want to I want to ask you just to note that down because I have two more questions. So if you could do them all in at once it would be great. So if you could note the first question down from Enrio and I have Hans Brunix and I have an Coopers online. So Hans please. Yes. Thank you uh Yseph. when when I was the director at the European Environment Agency, we collaborated very well together and the analysis showed and here's a question that national climate adaptation plans take health more into account than national health plans take climate into account. Why in your opinion is that the case? A very concrete question from Hans Brunix and a last question from Ans Koopers. Ernst, are you there? Yes, I am. Thank you very much. Very good to see you from I'm from far. Uh, thank you very much, Professor Hunter, for your wonderful presentation. So, we started uh early this morning with the presentation from Johan Roxton on the potential scenarios for our climate change like different scenarios in rise of temperature. My question is would you have any data on estimates on impact of these different scenarios on our human health? Thank you anst and Joseph please uh thank you so much for doing them all at once the answers to those three questions. Thank you. Thank you so much uh for this question. I will try to be very short. First question I would say definitively yes. I think focus and emphasis in solutions is very important. But let me tell why I say that it's not because I think that solutions may be giving more optimism or more more appealing is because I think that the evidence provides full support to emphasize solutions. Just to put an example of heat related mortality, we have h studies showing that when we model uh a scenarios of transformation of energy, food systems and transportation in uh Europe and globally. According to the Paris agreement, the co- benefits for human health that we can have from these mitigations are counted in millions of lives that can be saved. When professor Marandanda part of the Lancet countdown has assessed the economic value of this life that can be saved from mitigation policies in terms of the economic cost compared to the cost of the policies. The cost benefit of the death that we can save are higher than the cost of the policies globally. Obviously the rich countries the balance would be negative. So I think that the increasing evidence we have on solutions it justifies that this may be one of the focus of the report. The second question was about why there is this close connection between or why this a closer connection between human health and adaptation and on the other hand more difficult to make with mitigation obviously because to some well part of the climate effects part of the effects of climate change in human health are very easy to to understand heat waves and these are very direct and this is what led us to understanding the need of the adaptation but many others are indirect and are very delayed migrations aggravating inequality some of the effects on mental health and this is more difficult to see but I think that we need to build up on the opportunities that the direct impacts are bringing for adaptation and again just let me take few seconds to insist we have the opportunity to drastically reduce the impact of heat on mortality in Europe. But to do that, we need to change the mind of public health that has been working slowly incrementally over the last decades to take changes in public health and adaptation infrastructures that are scaled in ambition and in resources. And this is feasible. And finally, it was the scenarios of the impact. Yes, this is an important part, very complex. I I'm not an expert in this field but I can tell you that for instance I remember one of in our indicators is using a scenarios of adaptation some of the SPSS scenarios to model what may happen in the next decades if we keep in a low-level adaptation scenario and one of the estimates of this indicator is that if we keep in a low-level adaptation scenario from Now to the end of the century we will accumulate more than 3 million death attributable to climate change in Europe which I think it gives an estimate of the magnitude because my experience in public health I am absolutely convinced that this is an underestimation. Some one of you the commissioners mention it the relationship between air pollution and demensia. Okay. But remember 15 years ago we were totally or 20 years ago we were ignorant that air pollution was reaching our hearts, our brains and every part of our body. And to some extent we are in a similar situation with climate change. We only know the top of the iceberg. We can be absolutely sure that what we know is a reality that can be scientifically proven. But at the same time we need to believe that probably this is unfortunately only the top of the iceberg. I finish here. Thank you very much. Thank you so much Joseep. Thank you. Thank you for your informative and insightful remarks and we might want to get back to you later during our work and our progress. So thank you so much. Thanks again. Thank you. So next we will have a short intervention uh from her excellency Leila Ali Evva who will provide remarks on behalf of the COP 29 presidency from Azerbai season an Azarbaijani environmental advocate and artist and the vice president of the Hedar Ali Foundation in Azarbaijan and founder and head of the international dialogue for environmental action. She has also served as the goodwill ambassador of the food and agriculture organization of the United Nations promoting global efforts in food security and environmental protection. So uh your excellency Leila Alivva. Uh ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, uh thank you very much for the opportunity to speak here and uh on a very important subject, our health and the climate we live in. Like any other global crisis, it requires solidarity, collective action and resultoriented steps. But more than that, it requires care and dedication from every country. And this is what we clearly saw during COP 29 in Baku. COP 29 was not only a turning point in international dialogue. It was also a platform for bold decisions. 14 major initiatives adopted in Baku from clean energy and water to urban resilience, climate financing, agriculture and human development which will help build healthy environments and reduce health risks. In cooperation with the WH and UNICEF, our country launched trainings for health care professionals impact of climate change and air pollution on children and reproductive health was also studied together with UNICEF and UNFPA. topic of climate change and health was added to the curriculum at the local medical university. All these efforts reflect the spirit of COP 29. I hope together we will act to ensure the environmental protection goes hand in hand with the public health. And of course it's important for everyone each one of us to acknowledge that the time to act is now. Uh dear friends, at the idea campaign which was created in 2011 uh with the goal to protect our environment in Azerban and uh all around the world. We approach all our projects with creativity and most important with the positivity. We have implemented many projects such as planting million of trees, educating children, organizing workshop, raising awareness. We have a project called one drop to show the importance of each drop of water and how it can affect someone's life. Uh we educate about air pollution and make documentaries. We uh work a lot with the youth and uh we uh teach that each one of us can make a big difference just by adjusting some of the everyday activities. Uh idea is also actively promoting sustainable transport by encouraging bicycle use. Uh cycling not only reduces emission but also supports a healthier lifestyle and more livable cities. We also organize uh together with our volunteers coastal cleanup campaigns and so far we have collected uh over 120 tons of plastic which has been recycled. And during COPA 29 in Bakur, IDEA took a very active role to raise awareness and uh about air pollution, biodiversity, water issues and climate change together with the UNF triple C, IUN, WWF and other international partners. And it was very pleasing to see how many young people uh international experts uh are there to join our efforts in protecting our planet. Uh of course uh if you're healthy you are happy and uh nature gives us endless energy, harmony and good feelings. We're connected to nature. If the nature is hurting, we are hurting. This is something that each one of us should understand. And a happy person will treat nature and people around with great care and respect. That's why investing in health is also investing in a more peaceful and sustainable world. Uh I'd like to thank our host for bringing us together. Wish you all uh happiness, light, prosperity, and I hope that today's discussion will uh lead to more concrete actions. Thank you. Thank you so much, Leila. Thank you. Uh thank you for your inspiring words. And now we move on to my concluding remarks or you wanted to. Okay. So please hands. Thank you. I wanted to uh thank your excellency Miss Leila Aliva in recognition of Azar Bejan's outstanding contribution to the climate actions through COP 29. Azrajan successfully prepared for this major global event in just 11 months, welcoming over 76,000 participants from countries and territories all around the world. Health was also in the focus at COP 29 with a dedicated health pavon, a health day and numerous events emphasizing the vital connection between climate and health. We would like to express appreciation Madame Aliva as a founder and head of the international dialogue for environmental action IDA. You have been a tireless advocate for sustainability from restoring wildlife to creating greener cities and raising environmental awareness. Your initiative remind us that lasting change begins with action and with hope. I'm very much looking forward meeting you in Baku working with you and with your organization linked to the panuropean commission for climate and health which we launched today. On behalf of Europe I extend my heartful congratulations and deep appreciation. Thank you. And now we move on to the concluding remarks which will be very very short because uh we have run a little bit behind schedule. However, I think we can all agree that we have had not only very important information, data and analysis this morning, but also a lot of ideas uh on how we can proceed with our work. and I'm very much looking forward to our discussion later today where we can talk about how we can uh use those ideas that have been put to us this morning. Um I think also that um the seriousness of the situation is very clear after this morning's interventions. So the pressure on this commission is even more now than it was this morning. And I think we are all very much uh aware of that after having listened to those amazing experts, scientists and and other uh other introductions this morning. So let us proceed. Uh there is one change in schedule. We will now move on to a group photo. Uh a very important part of the project and for transparency as we've been talking about. From now we will do a group photo and then we will move on to a short lunch and then to our discussions and deliberations in the afternoon. Thank you very much.