This year has seen unprecedented levels of public and UN level engagement in climate change, but is the world responding quickly enough?

Recent research, such as the latest reports by the Lancet Countdown or the WHO, positions climate change as a major risk for global health. The concept of Planetary Health stresses the profound connections between the state of the global environment and human health. The health impacts of climate change put additional stress on many health systems, and have already been inducing significant additional mortality. Yet they remain little addressed in medical schools and school of public health, despite health practitioners being increasingly confronted with these new risks, both in industrial or developing countries. A better preparation of health professionals to these issues is crucial for more adequate care.

At the invitation of Université Paris Cité, the Centre Virchow-Villermé for Public Health Paris-Berlin and the University of Heidelberg, IPCC members, policy-makers, researchers, and practitioners will gather on November 22nd 2019 in Paris to address these emerging risks for public and global health.

World leaders will gather from 2nd to 13th December 2019 in Madrid for the Climate Change Conference to encourage concrete climate action. In this context, the meeting will also mark the launch of the 2019 edition of the Lancet Countdown Initiative report, which tracks the evolving health profile of climate change and provides an independent assessment of governments’ delivery of their commitments to tackle climate change.