Kia ora Friend,
This month we are focusing on COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which begins in Glasgow at the end of this month. We support an NZ delegation attending the conference, but are asking that they avail of the opportunity to make a much stronger commitment to reduce NZ’s emissions. This needs to put health at the centre of our response and take account of both our historical emissions and our privileged status as a rich country. COVID continues to disrupt international travel, and the inequitable access to vaccines worldwide means that many poorer countries will be unable to travel to Glasgow. We must acknowledge our responsibilities as a leading Pacific country and ensure that they are given fair representation at the conference.
The health sector reforms within Aotearoa are slowly gathering pace, and will be a key focus for 2022. We strongly recommend that all healthcare practitioners, students and organisations continue to advocate strongly that a dedicated sustainability unit be embedded within both Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority at the outset, in order to oversee decarbonisation and other sustainability improvements. This is a relatively simple measure that has been extremely successful in the NHS England, but must be interwoven into the developing structure of both new health departments.
Finally, we are always delighted to hear from members who would be interested in getting involved in submission development or other work (see below). We will also be shortly putting out a call for anyone interested in joining our Executive Board- look out for this in the weeks before our AGM at the end of November.
Ngā mihi nui, Dermot Coffey,
Co-convenor, OraTaiao: NZ Climate and Health Council
OraTaiao - October 2021 Newsletter (0.77MB)
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