A joint event hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Health Group, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change, the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, and the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change.

Chairs:

• Daniel Zeichner MP, Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group
• Baroness Walmsley, Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson (Health)

Speakers:

• Dr Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief, the Lancet
• Professor Hugh Montgomery, Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine, Whittington Health NHS Trust and Professor of Intensive Care Medicine, University College London
• Professor Georgina Mace, Professor of Biodiversity and Ecosystems and Head of the Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, University College London
• ·Professor Sir Andy Haines, Professor of Public Health and Primary Care, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

The World Health Organisation estimates that between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause 250,000 additional deaths, each year, around the world - from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.

The impact of climate change is also being felt in the UK and Europe. According to a recent study by scientists at the European Commission Joint Research Centre, an additional 152,000 people could die each year in Europe by 2100, if nothing is done to curb the effects of climate change.

However, although climate change poses significant risks to human health and wellbeing, addressing climate change also presents enormous opportunities to improve health and save money. Indeed, an effective response to climate change could profoundly improve the health of populations today and into the future. For the UK, addressing climate change and its associated health impacts could save the NHS huge sums of money, as well as promoting robust, sustainable and effective health care across the UK.

In association with The UK Health Alliance on Climate Change - which brings together Britain’s major health institutions - and the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change - an international, multidisciplinary research collaboration tracking progress on health and climate change across the globe - the All-Party Parliamentary Health Group and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change, are holding a joint meeting to look at how climate change is affecting the UK today, and how health and care services need to prepare for it.

The meeting comes after the Lancet Countdown publishes, in October 2017, its in-depth analysis of how climate change is affecting all countries around the world, including the UK. This paper reports on 40 indicators on health and climate change, which are grouped into five thematic working groups: climate change impacts, exposures and vulnerability; adaptation planning and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economic and finance; and public and political engagement. The Lancet Countdown has also produced a UK National Brief in association with the Royal College Physicians, which investigates the health impacts of climate change in the UK and the policy implications of this.