ICS Estudos e Relatórios Nº1 / 2019

ICS E S T U D O S e R E L A T Ó R I O S 2019 in Climate Change and Sustainable Development Policies between the University of Lisbon and New University of Lisbon. Current Framework Updating: One Year into the Expert Meeting One year after the Expert Meeting on the nexus challenge of climate change, human health, and urban sustainability, we witnessed an increase in the global focus of climate change-induced public health issues. First, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared climate change to be the most significant health challenge of the 21st century. Notably, the WHO considered air pollution as the most significant environmental risk to health a nd demanded national governments and health partners to pay the most considerable attention to air pollution and climate change. In the meantime, the five-year period 2015- 2019 became the warmest five-year period on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and Arctic sea ice minimum in 2019 remained among the lowest on record. Climate change increasingly affects people's health and well-being, as do other global environmental changes such as loss of biodiversity, growing urban density, and economic inequality. For this purpose, the WHO also started a new 5-year strategic plan – the 13th General Programme of Work in 2019, with a triple billion target: ensuring 1 billion more people to 1) benefit from access to health coverage, 2) be protected from health emergencies and 3) enjoy better health and well-being. The UN also held its Climate Action Summit in September 2019 in New York. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on all leaders to make concrete, realistic plans to enhance their nationally determined contributions by 2020, in line with reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent over the next decade, and net-zero emissions by 2050. Reflecting on the Expert Meeting and the Policy recommendations, we identified the increasing recognition of the nexus between climate change and public health and urban sustainability globally. That means more policymakers are now able to consider this nexus within a complex social-ecological system framework. This is a positive signal. Given the accelerating rate of change in the climate, we suggest policymakers treat climate-related public health issues in cities as a hazard under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. That means to make and implement policies that 1) are better informed by scientific evidence, and 2) trigger preventive actions in both the public and private sectors.