Your Health and a Changing Climate: Newsletter - Volume 2

Policy Initiatives

Fourth European Ministerial Meeting on Health and the Environment - The Future for our Children

More than 40 ministers and 1,000 delegates from 52 European and central Asian countries, and observers from other continents met in Budapest June 23-25, 2004. Their discussions focussed on children's environmental health, and such related areas as the environmental burden of disease, climate change, and environmental health information and education. The Declaration at the end of the meeting recognized that:

1. climate change poses increasing short and long-term hazards to human health
2. the climate is already changing, and the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events may change in the future and
3. recent extreme weather events have caused serious health and social problems in Europe.

The Ministers committed to take action to reduce the current burden of disease from extreme weather and climate events and will report on progress in 2007. The next meeting of the Ministers will take place in 2009. Implementation of these commitments is to be guided by the European Environment and Health Committee with the support of the WHO Regional Office for Europe.

>>> For more information visit
http://www.euro.who.int/eprise/main/WHO/Progs/BUD/Or
http://193.231.189.110:8080/gsdl/cgi-bin/whoenv/library.fcgi
or contact melanie_itzkovitch@hc-sc.gc.ca

Climate Change and Clean Air Linkages Roundtable

Organized by Environment Canada, a Clean Air - Climate Change Linkages roundtable was held on May 27, 2004 in Ottawa, Ontario. The objectives of the roundtable were to provide stakeholders with the opportunity to explore, from a long-term strategic perspective, a wide range of issues from a wide range of sectors, and to provide guidance on the linkages between policies that are related to climate change and air quality issues. Participants at the roundtable included representatives from federal and provincial government departments, from industry, and from non-governmental organizations.

One of the key messages from the roundtable discussions was that by linking climate change and clean air initiatives, benefits from both a GHG emissions reduction and a climate change impacts perspective emerge, which can have implications on integrated policies that can save money, as well as help to improve human health.

>>> For further information about the event contact Melanie Itzkovitch at melanie_itzkovitch@hc-sc.gc.ca

Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) for Cooperation on Addressing Climate Change

There is growing recognition that climate change represents a threat to the quality of life of all Canadians through its impacts on human health, the environment and the economy. In 2002, the Government of Canada announced the Climate Change Plan for Canada to help meet it commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.

Earlier this year, the Government of Canada signed Memoranda of Understanding with the Territory of Nunavut (Oct 2003) and with the provinces of PEI (Nov 2003), Manitoba (March 2004) and Ontario (May 2004) to coordinate efforts in developing and implementing policies and measures that address climate change and the impacts that are expected to affect communities across Canada. The co-signatories agree to work together in important areas such as promoting energy efficiency, promoting development of new energy sources, environmental management, assessing climate change impacts, developing adaptation strategies and public awareness and education. Ontario has recognized its MOU with the Federal Government as an opportunity to improve the health of its citizens by highlighting the need to take advantage of the important co-benefits (e.g., cleaner air) that can be associated with initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

>>> For more information go to
http://www.climatechange.gc.ca/english/publications/mou_ontario/

>>> To view the Climate Change Plan for Canada go to
http://www.climatechange.gc.ca/plan_for_canada/plan/