UNGC Academy Session: How Businesses Can Deliver Health Resilient Climate Action

Note: the language of this event is English

Overview

The health costs associated with climate change, including conditions linked to air pollution, undernutrition, extreme weather events and infectious disease, are immense. Air pollution alone, resulting from society’s deadly addiction to coal and the burning of fossil fuels, causes one in five premature deaths globally. Climate change is already impacting the future of work in significant ways – affecting occupational safety and health as well as productivity. The International Labor Organization (ILO) is predicting that with heat stress under a 1.5°C warming scenario, 2.2% of work hours will be lost in 2030, the equivalent of 80 million full-time jobs. This makes tackling climate change the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century. Meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement presents businesses across all sectors with the opportunity to deliver co-benefits for human and planetary health and improve their climate and business performance.