Parliament Supports Climate & Health Declaration from Pontifical Academy of Sciences

The Parliament of the World’s Religions and its Climate Action Task Force expresses an emphatic appreciation for what Task Force Chair David Hales signals is a “significant and substantive” declaration on climate change and health authored through the cooperative input of religious, state, academic and scientific actors this month in Vatican City.
The “Declaration: Our Planet, Our Health, Our Responsibility” was developed out of data and concepts presented at a workshop entitled “Health of People, Health of Planet and Our Responsibility Climate Change, Air Pollution and Health” at a November 2017 high-level meeting organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
The declaration is shared below following an introduction invited by the Parliament of the World’s Religions from its Trustee  Rev. Dr. John Pawlikowski explaining the context and importance of this release:
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences was established by Pope Pius XI in 1936. Its membership is largely lay professionals who work on major questions affecting the relationship of religion and science under the jurisdiction of the Pope. For most of the decades since its inception, it has operated on somewhat low radar, its work being known primarily in certain elite circles. But the theology of Pope Francis that is firmly rooted in the understanding of the church’s role in contemporary society as envisioned in the II Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Church and the Modern World whose Latin title is GAUDIUM ET SPES (“Joy and Hope”) has brought the work of the Academy to much higher visibility and importance. This current statement is but once example of this new visibility in global society.
In the theological vision of Pope Francis, faith and spirituality must have a profound earthly rootedness. For him, as evidenced in his recent statements such as LAUDATO SI on climate change and the need for integral ecology, the old distinction between the spiritual and temporal realms is no longer sustainable. To be an authentic person of faith, to be truly spiritual, one must make a firm commitment to work for the sustainability of all creation. Such a commitment for Pope Francis is not merely one possible follow-up from a spiritual perspective. Rather, it is the core of contemporary Catholic spirituality.
The spirituality being promoted by Pope Francis demands a knowledge of relevant scientific perspectives. This is where the Academy emerges as a central instrument for the grounding of contemporary spirituality. Its work has become a central component of Pope Francis’ theological vision.
Finally, it is important to note that the statement has been developed in an ecumenical Christian setting, including representatives of the Christian evangelical communities. This is a positive step as no one denomination can generate the spirituality now needed for creational sustainability. Its one drawback in this regard is that it does not reach beyond the Christian community, something that hopefully will be corrected in the future. A true global spirituality must have roots drawn from the entire interreligious family.

 
 
Declaration: Our Planet, Our Health, Our Responsibility:

This declaration is based on the data and concepts presented at the workshop:
Health of People, Health of Planet and Our Responsibility
Climate Change, Air Pollution and Health
Organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
Casina Pio IV, Vatican City, 2-4 November 2017, Casina Pio IV 
(DOWNLOAD THE FULL STATEMENT &  REPORT HERE)
 
Statement of the Problem
With unchecked climate change and air pollution, the very fabric of life on Earth, including that of humans, is at grave risk. We propose scalable solutions to avoid such catastrophic changes. There is less than a decade to put these solutions in place to preserve our quality of life for generations to come. The time to act is now.
We human beings are creating a new and dangerous phase of Earth’s history that has been termed the Anthropocene. The term refers to the immense effects of human activity on all aspects of the Earth’s physical systems and on life on the planet. We are dangerously warming the planet, leaving behind the climate in which civilization developed. With accelerating climate change, we put ourselves at grave risk of massive crop failures, new and re-emerging infectious diseases, heat extremes, droughts, mega-storms, floods and sharply rising sea levels. The economic activities that contribute to global warming are also wreaking other profound damages, including air and water pollution, deforestation, and massive land degradation, causing a rate of species extinction unprecedented for the past 65 million years, and a dire threat to human health through increases in heart disease, stroke, pulmonary disease, mental health, infections and cancer. Climate change threatens to exacerbate the current unprecedented flow of displacement of people and add to human misery by stoking violence and conflict.
The poorest of the planet, who are still relying on 19th century technologies to meet basic needs such as cooking and heating, are bearing a heavy brunt of the damages caused by the economic activities of the rich. The rich too are bearing heavy costs of increased flooding, mega-storms, heat extremes, droughts and major forest fires. Climate change and air pollution strike down the rich and poor alike.
Principal Findings

Burning of fossil fuels and solid biomass release hazardous chemicals to the air.
Climate change caused by fossil fuels and other human activities poses an existential threat to Homo sapiens and contributes to mass extinction of species. In addition, air pollution caused by the same activities is a major cause of premature death globally.

Supporting data are summarized in the attached background section. Climate change and air pollution are closely interlinked because emissions of air pollutants and climate-altering greenhouse gases and other pollutants arise largely from humanity’s use of fossil fuels and biomass fuels, with additional contributions from agriculture and land-use change. This interlinkage multiplies the costs arising from our current dangerous trajectory, yet it can also amplify the benefits of a rapid transition to sustainable energy and land use. An integrated plan to drastically reduce climate change and air pollution is essential.

Regions that have reduced air pollution have achieved marked improvements in human health as a result.

We have already emitted enough pollutants to warm the climate to dangerous levels (warming by 1.5°C or more). The warming as well as the droughts caused by climate change, combined with the unsustainable use of aquifers and surface water, pose grave threats to availability of fresh water and food security. By moving rapidly to a zero-carbon energy system – replacing coal, oil and gas with wind, solar, geothermal and other zero-carbon energy sources, drastically reducing emissions of all other climate altering pollutants and by adopting sustainable land use practices, humanity can prevent catastrophic climate change, while cutting the huge disease burden caused by air pollution and climate change.

We advocate a mitigation approach that factors in the low probability-high impact warming projections such as the one in twenty chances of a 6°C warming by 2100.

Proposed Solutions
We declare that governments and other stakeholders should urgently undertake the scalable and practical solutions listed below:
1. Health must be central to policies that stabilize climate change below dangerous levels, drive zero-carbon as well as zero-air pollution and prevent ecosystem disruptions.
2. All nations should implement with urgency the global commitments made in Agenda 2030 (including the Sustainable Development Goals) and the Paris Climate Agreement.
3. Decarbonize the energy system as early as possible and no later than mid-century, shifting from coal, oil and gas to wind, solar, geothermal and other zero-carbon energy sources;
4. The rich not only expeditiously shift to safe energy and land use practices, but also provide financing to the poor for the costs of adapting to climate change;
5. Rapidly reduce hazardous air pollutants, including the short-lived climate pollutants methane, ozone, black carbon, and hydro fluorocarbons;
6. End deforestation and degradation and restore degraded lands to protect biodiversity, reduce carbon emissions and to absorb atmospheric carbon into natural sinks;
7. In order to accelerate decarbonization there should be effective carbon pricing informed by estimates of the social cost of carbon, including the health effects of air pollution;
8. Promote research and development of technologies to remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere for deployment if necessary;
9. Forge collaboration between health and climate sciences to create a powerful alliance for sustainability;
10. Promote behavioral changes beneficial for human health and protective of the environment such as increased consumption of plant-based diets;
11. Educate and empower the young to become the leaders of sustainable development;
12. Promote an alliance with society that brings together scientists, policy makers, healthcare providers, faith/spiritual leaders, communities and foundations to foster the societal transformation necessary to achieve our goals in the spirit of Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’.
To implement these 12 solutions, we call on health professionals to: engage, educate and advocate for climate mitigation and undertake preventive public health actions vis-à-vis air pollution and climate change; inform the public of the high health risks of air pollution and climate change. The health sector should assume its obligation in shaping a healthy future. We call for a substantial improvement in energy efficiency; and electrification of the global vehicle fleet and all other downstream uses of fossil fuels. Ensure clean energy benefits also protect society’s most vulnerable communities. There are numerous living laboratories including tens of cities, many universities, Chile, California and Sweden, who have embarked on a pathway to cut both air pollution and climate change. These thriving models have already created 8 million jobs in a low carbon economy, enhanced the wellbeing of their citizens and shown that such measures can both sustain economic growth and deliver tangible health benefits for their citizens.
Acknowledgements
We especially thank the global leaders who spoke at the workshop: Honorable Jerry Brown, Governor of California, Honorable Governor Alberto Rodríguez Saá, the Governor of San Luis, Argentina, Honorable Dr. Marcelo Mena, Minister of Environment of Chile, Honorable Kevin de León, President Pro Tempore of California Senate, and Honorable Scott Peters of the US house of representatives.
We also thank the contributions of the faith leaders: Rev Leith Anderson, President of the National Association for Evangelicals, USA; Rev Alastair Redfern, Bishop of Derby, UK; Rev Mitch Hescox, CEO of Evangelical Environmental Network, USA. We thank Dr. Jeremy Farrar, CEO of the Wellcome Trust for his contributions as a speaker and for thoughtful edits of the document.
We acknowledge the major contributions to the drafting of the declaration by Drs: Maria Neira (WHO), Andy Haines (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) and Jos Lelieveld (Max Planck Inst of Chemistry, Mainz). For a list of speakers and panelists at the symposium, please see the agenda of the meeting attached at the end of this document.
We are thankful to the sponsors of the workshop: Maria Neira of WHO; Drs Bess Marcus and Michael Pratt of Institute of Public Health at the University of California at San Diego; Drs Erminia Guarneri and Rauni King of the Miraglo Foundation.
End of Declaration
What follows is a summary of the data and concepts on air pollution and climate change as described at the workshop; the last IPCC report published in 2013; and the new data that were published since 2013, including several reports by the LANCET commissions and WHO. 
The full declaration with author names can be found here. 
 
SIGNATORIES

Monsignor Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo (PAS Chancellor)
Joachim von Braun (PAS President & UOB)
Veerabhadran Ramanathan (PAS & UCSD)
Partha Dasgupta (PASS & CU)
Peter Raven (PAS & President Emeritus, Missouri Botanical Garden)
Jeffrey Sachs (UN SDSN)
Edmund G. Brown Jr. (Governor of California)
Kevin de León (President of the California State Senate)
Alberto Rodriguez Saá (Gobernador de la Provincia de San Luis, República Argentina)
Scott Peters, Congressman (Member of the U.S. House of Representatives) from California’s 52nd district)
Sir Andy Haines (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
Jos Lelieveld (Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Germany)
The Rev. Mitchell C. Hescox (President/CEO, The Evangelical Environmental Network)
Bishop Alastair Redfern (Church of England)
Werner Arber (PAS, Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine)
Yuan T. Lee (PAS, Nobel laureate in Chemistry)
Paul J. Crutzen (PAS, Nobel laureate in Chemistry)
John (Hans Joachim) Schellnhuber (PAS, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany)
Ignacio Rodríguez Iturbe (PAS & Distinguished University Professor and TEES Distinguished Research Professor, Texas A&M University)
Francis L. Delmonico (PAS)
Wael Al-Delaimy (UCSD Institute for Public Health)
Fonna Forman (UCSD Center on Global Justice)
Erminia M Guarneri (President Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine, Treasurer Miraglo Foundation)
Howard Frumkin (University of Washington School of Public Health)
Ulrich Pöschl (Max Planck Institute for Chemistry)
Daniel M. Kammen (Professor of Energy, UC Berkeley)
Nithya Ramanathan (Nexleaf Analytics)
Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, UCLA Wasserman Dean & Distinguished Professor of Education
Bess H. Marcus (Dean, Brown University School of Public Health)
Jonathan M. Samet (Dean, Colorado School of Public Health)
Glen G. Scorgie (Professor of Theology and Ethics, Bethel Seminary San Diego)
Conrado Estol (Director, Heart and Brain Medicine -MECyC, Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Edward Maibach (George Mason University)
Lise Van Susteren (Advisory Board; Center for Health and the Global Environment; Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)
Jeremy Farrar (Director Wellcome Trust)
Manuel Frávega (Organismo Provincial para el Desarrollo Sostenible de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Qiyong Liu (Chief Scientist for Health and Climate Change in China)
Maria Neira (Director, Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health, WHO) 
Leslie Parker (REIL)
Emilio Chuvieco (Professor of Geography, Satellite Earth Observation, University of Alcalá, Spain)
Antonella Litta (International Society of Doctors for the Environment – Isde)
Justin Farrell (Yale University, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

Declaration: © 2017 The Pontifical Academy of Sciences
Image Credit: Observer Romano