The World Health Organisation is launching two new publications to explore the impact of climate change and health at the COP 9 meeting in Milan, Italy on 9-12 December 2003. The ’Conference of Parties’ or COP is the "supreme body" of the Climate Change Convention. Its mission is to promote and review the Convention’s implementation.
The WHO programme on global change and health started in 1999 to implement the recommendations of the Third Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health (1999) and to promote healthy global environmental policies. To this end, the programme coordinates a Europe-wide interagency network that:
assesses and monitors the health impact of global environmental changes;
carries out capacity building activities;
evaluates policy options and advocates with Member States on preventive measures.
Today, global changes have begun to affect human health simultaneously and often interactively. These changes involve some global issues such as climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion, and issues of natural resource degradation such as land degradation and desertification.
For more information about the two documents "Climate change and human health - risks and responses" and "Methods of assessing human health vulnerability and public health adaptation to climate change" visit the WHO website on global change.
