COP28 - Call for Action

Climate change poses a growing threat to human health, animal health, and ecosystems, as it affects vital elements such as air and soil quality, access to water, biodiversity, food security, and quality and nutrition.

Climate change is fed by and feeds back biodiversity loss, including forests, oceans, and habitats, which provokes animals, plants, microorganism’s disappearance, greater spread of pathogens, and increasing opportunities for the emergence or reemergence of vector-borne infectious diseases, foodborne infectious diseases, or zoonotic diseases, i.e. diseases transmitted from animals to human¹. We already know that 75% of emerging infectious diseases are of zoonotic origin and emerging disease outbreaks are accelerating, largely due to human impacts on nature^2,3,4. Climate change also disrupts our food systems as a whole and is an important driver of food crises across the world.

This declaration calls for an urgent and comprehensive implementation of the One Health approach across all relevant sectors, notably health systems.

As defined by the One Health High-Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP), ‘One Health’ is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems. It recognizes that the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and interdependent. The approach mobilizes multiple sectors, disciplines, and communities at varying levels of society) to work together to foster well-being and tackle threats to health and ecosystems, while addressing the collective need for clean water, energy and air, safe and nutritious food, taking action on climate change, and contributing to sustainable development. At the international level, the Quadripartite (WHO, WOAH, FAO, UNEP) does continuously support and promote the One Health approach.

PREZODE (PREvent ZOonotic Disease Emergence)⁵, a science-led international One Health initiative, was launched at the One Planet Summit in 2021. It aims to prevent potential pandemics, notably from zoonotic origin and accelerated by climate change. PREZODE builds bridges between science, society and policy makers to ensure evidence-based relevant and sustainable policies to reduce (re)emerging risks while ensuring best allocation of resources. PREZODE will contribute to upstream pandemic prevention through understanding and identification of environmental risk drivers, empowerment of local communities, and multistakeholder partnerships for long-term impact.

This is why we, signatories of this declaration, urge for:

• Mitigating climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and promoting health altogether in a comprehensive way through the One Health approach to build or restore healthy and resilient socio-ecosystems;
• Mobilizing in a collaborative way governments, donors, and relevant stakeholders to develop improved solutions and support sustainable ecosystems management for global health;
• Raising awareness on the importance of the One Health approach;
• Reinforcing health systems with the One Health approach: considering climate change and its effects on health systems and also minimizing environmental impacts of health systems;
• Transforming our food systems to make them sustainable, including through landscape management that respects the One Health approach, contributes to tackling biodiversity loss, and fosters climate change mitigation and adaptation;
• Fostering a greater engagement for and empowerment of frontline communities, especially the most vulnerable ones, in actions aimed at preventing pandemics and tackling climate change;
• Ensuring that financial instruments support One Health joint actions (prevention of zoonoses, climate change mitigation, support to ecosystem conservation, health risk reduction);
• Considering the establishment of Interdisciplinary One Health Committees or task forces comprising scientists and experts from across a variety of sectors (environment, animal health, human health as well as socio-economic and political sciences), policymakers, and other stakeholders. These committees should analyze scientific evidence, propose relevant and adapted strategies, and guide decision-makers.

References

1. IPBES (2020) Workshop Report on Biodiversity and Pandemics of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Daszak, P. et al. IPBES secretariat, Bonn, Germany, https://ipbes.net/sites/default/files/2020-12/IPBES%20Workshop%20on%20Biodiversity%20and%20Pandemics%20Report_0.pdf
2. Stephenson N, Madhav NK, et al. Historical trends demonstrate a pattern of increasingly frequent and severe spillover events of high-consequence zoonotic viruses. BMJ Glob Health 2023;8:e012026. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2023-012026
3. Tazerji, S.S et al. An Overview of Anthropogenic Actions as Drivers for Emerging and Re-Emerging Zoonotic Diseases. Pathogens 2022, 11, 1376. https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens11111376
4. Carlson CJ, Albery GF, Merow C, Trisos CH, Zipfel CM, Eskew EA, Olival KJ, Ross N, Bansal S. Climate change increases cross-species viral transmission risk. Nature. 2022 Apr 28 doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04788-w.
5. Peyre M, Vourc'h G, Lefrançois T, Martin-Prevel Y, Soussana JF, Roche B. PREZODE: preventing zoonotic disease emergence. Lancet. 2021, 397: 792-793. https://prezode.org/