CLIMATE CHANGE EMERGENCY ACTION
"What Should We Do about Climate Change?
Health Professionals Need to Act Now, Collectively and Individually"
(British Medical Journal)
EMERGENCY ACTION links to all the
CLIMATE CHANGE EMERGENCY MEDICAL RESPONSE
action pages designed for health and other concerned professionals
who want to take action on climate change and
help mitigate the climate emergency.
This is an emergency and for emergency situations we need emergency action.
— Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary General, 2007
Urgent Emergency Actions
The world desperately needs a strong collective voice from our leading institutions, particularly healthcare professionals, urging that the climate change emergency be front and centre at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations.
Currently, these negotiations are stalled. They are being based on scientifically outdated assumptions that dangerous climate change is sometime in the future, that 2ºC is the danger limit, and that there is no emergency.
TWO RAPID EMERGENCY RESPONSES for INFLUENCING the UNFCCC NEGOTIATIONS
1. Support the pledge initiative and declaration of the Climate and Health Council, an international alliance based in the United Kingdom.
2. Support and distribute the statement calling for urgent action on climate change at the conference on the
health and security implications of climate change in London on 17th October 2011
3. Use the Declaration of the Global Climate Change Emergency as an instrument to warn that we are already beyond "dangerous interference with the climate system" and into a global public health emergency due to accelerating climate change and committed future global warming.
4. The single most effective way you can do this is to request your national government to declare that the world is in a dangerous state of climate change emergency, and that they respond accordingly. Send this Declaration of the Global Climate Change Emergency (or use it as a model to compose your own letter) to your national government requesting them- to declare that the world is beyond "dangerous interference with the climate system"
- to declare that this constitutes a state of emergency with respect to the safety of all future generations
and asking that they convey this to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations for a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol.
Endorse the Declaration of the Global Climate Change Emergency yourself and share it with others. Use it to help other health professionals take a leadership role in the emergency response on global climate change — by speaking and acting on behalf of vulnerable populations and future generations in recognition that they are in peril.There are several other ways to use the declaration.- Use it as is or modify it to develop a position statement for your local, regional, state/provincial, and national professional associations to endorse.
- Share it with colleagues to begin a discussion on the current climate change dangers and inevitable future impacts.
- Share it with other civil society organizations (for example, churches, environmental groups, service clubs) that you know or are involved with.
- Send it to your elected officials at local, regional and state/province levels to encourage them to declare the global climate change emergency.
Physicians can read and support the position statements developed by other professional healthcare associations.Advocate for future generations and populations who are especially vulnerable to climate change. Do this by speaking up- within local associations
- regionally
- nationally
- within international and specialty professional associations
Seek ways to create a cross-professional voice by working with- physicians
- nurses in all fields
- public health professionals
- all healthcare practitioners
- human rights advocates and aid workers
- educators
- law professionals
- religious leaders
Support leaders who are or should be sounding the alarm on the climate change emergency, by sending a letter of support or encouragement to-
Mr. Ban Ki-moon
- Secretary General
- United Nations
- New York, NY 10017
- USA
- Telephone +1 (212) 963-5012
- Fax +1 (212) 963-7055
-
Ms Christiana Figueres
- Executive Secretary
- UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
- P.O. Box 260124
- D-53153 Bonn
- Germany
- Telephone +49 (228) 815-1000
- Fax +49 (228) 815-1999
-
The Right Honourable David Cameron
- Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- 10 Downing Street
- London, UK
- SW1A 2AA
- Fax 020 7925 0918 (from outside the UK, the number is +44 20 7925 0918)
to encourage the UK government's continuing leadership on climate change internationally and for passing the world's first law controlling national GHG emissions. -
President Barack Obama
- President of the United States of America
- The White House
- 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
- Washington, DC
- USA 20500
- Comments: (00 + 1) 202-456-1111
- Fax: (00 + 1) 202-456-2461
to encourage him to follow through on promises of American leadership in climate change -
Dr. James E. Hansen
- Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
- Columbia University
- 750 Armstrong Hall
- 2880 Broadway
- New York, NY 10025 USA
- Telephone +1 (212) 678-5500
to thank him for leading the scientific voice on research into the global climate change emergency.
Reduce carbon footprints, at all levels.- individual/family
- clinic/practice/hospital
- health authority and professional association meetings and conferences
Follow up. Visit the
Follow Up
page for ideas on disseminating what you have learned about the global climate change emergency.
While recognising that solutions depend on government policies, we believe that general practitioners are well placed to constructively influence this debate. [...] In our view, the capacity of the medical voice to influence long term government policies on environmental issues including climate change should not be underestimated.
— Grant Blashki, MD, Colin D. Butler, PhD, and Suzie Brown
The mission of CLIMATE CHANGE EMERGENCY MEDICAL RESPONSE includes contributing to a global response of health and other concerned professionals who will inform leaders of government, institutions and professions, on an ethics-driven and scientific (non political) basis, that there is now a dangerous threat to the survival of civilization, of many vulnerable populations, and ultimately of humanity itself.
The immediate objective is to encourage governments to declare the global climate change emergency, and to inform healthcare associations and other professional organizations (national, regional, local) of the urgent need to make their voices heard internationally, especially at ongoing UN Framework Convention on Climate Change talks, where the successor to the Kyoto Protocol is being negotiated.
To facilitate these goals, this website suggests several effective actions suitable for busy professionals. It provides well researched wording for declarations and position statements on the climate change planetary emergency, and supplies the necessary links for forwarding these statements to the appropriate people and institutions.
Action on climate change has been likened to teenage sex. Everyone claims to be in on the action, but only a few are, and those not very effectively.... Health professionals have a track record of identifying and helping resolve serious public health issues. We are well placed to play a leadership role. Indeed it is a role we should not shirk. So what should we do?....
By personal and collective action, health professionals can contribute to the health of our own and future generations. By contributing your ideas, deploying your advocacy skills, and making your personal commitments. We can then justly say to our descendants that we played our part in preserving the integrity of our beautiful but fragile world.
— Robin Stott, Chair of the BMJ Carbon Council and Fiona Godlee,
British Medical Journal Editor
Return from Emergency Action to Evidence
Go to the Climate Change Emergency Declaration Page
Go from Emergency Action to Follow-up
Go to Climate Change Emergency Medical Response Homepage
