Call to Action to increase climate resilience of health-care facilities & air quality through sustainable energy

Hundreds of millions of people globally are served by health facilities without electricity, limiting access to essential and lifesaving medical devices and dramatically hampering the quality, accessibility and reliability of health services delivered. In addition, the health sector overall is responsible for 4.4% of global carbon emissions.

At the same time, around one third of the population worldwide still rely on polluting fuels and technology combinations to meet their basic daily energy needs for cooking. The resulting household air pollution leads to 3.2 million premature deaths each year from noncommunicable disease and pneumonia and is the largest source of black carbon, responsible for around half of black carbon emissions globally.

COP27 offers a great opportunity to synergize efforts to protect public health while mitigating climate change and building the resilience of the health system, therefore saving millions of lives.  

The High-Level Coalition on Health and Energy members urge the international community gathering at COP27 to make every effort to accelerate clean and sustainable energy access for health-care facilities and households. 

During the Second Meeting on October 7, 2022, the High-level Coalition endorsed a call to action, based on the Strategic Roadmap to promote healthier populations through clean and sustainable energy and on the following actions: 

1) consider clean cooking and access to electricity in health-care facilities two development priorities essential to protect public health;

2) dramatically increase public and private investments in electrifying health-care facilities and in clean cooking;

3) provide the necessary human and financial resources to design and implement clean energy plans and sustainable delivery models tailored to the needs of health sector and households;

4) develop tailored policy and financing schemes, able to unlock the potential of clean and sustainable energy solutions and to address the health sector needs;

5) increase cooperation between the energy and health sectors and collaboration with all relevant stakeholders; and

6) facilitate collaboration between private, public, and non-governmental actors.