Bridging the evidence gap to achieve a healthy, net zero future.

The urgent challenge of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest presents an opportunity to drive transformative changes in all sectors of society. Well designed actions to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions could bring major benefits for health, by both reducing the health risks of climate change and delivering multiple benefits to human health and development (co-benefits). Modelling studies estimate that many millions of premature deaths could be prevented and GHG emissions greatly reduced by phasing out fossil fuels, thereby reducing air pollution, and by encouraging active travel, increasing use of public transport, and shifting to sustainable and healthy diets. Further benefits could accrue from efficient, well ventilated housing and from efforts to develop net zero health-care systems. There is also great potential to achieve health and climate benefits from nature-based solutions, including green space in cities, reforestation, and reduced deforestation and agroforestry. However, these potential benefits will only be realised by addressing key barriers and challenges

The Next WHO Director-General’s Highest Priority: a Global Treaty on the Human Right to Health

Amidst the many challenges facing the next WHO Director-General, the new WHO head should find WHO’s foremost priority in its most important constitutional pillar: the right to health. The centerpiece of this endeavor should be leadership on the Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH), the proposed global treaty based in the right to health and aimed at national and global health equity. The treaty would reform global governance for health to enhance accountability, transparency, and civil society participation and protect the right to health in trade, investment, climate change, and other international regimes, while catalyzing governments to institutionalize the right to health at community through to national levels. It would usher in a new era of global health with justice – vast improvements in health outcomes, equitably distributed. With the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control having served as a proof of concept, the FCGH would be an innovative treaty finding solutions to overcome global health failings in accountability, equality, financing, and inter-sectoral coherence. It would include a global health accountability framework, encompassing, civil society engagement, independent monitoring, and plans for redress, while catalyzing national health accountability strategies, accountability mechanisms, disaggregated data, and community participation. National health equity strategies, pro-poor pathways to universal health coverage, and robust non-discrimination provisions could elevate the voices, priorities, and ultimately power of marginalized populations. The FCGH would include a national and global health financing framework, while reaching beyond the health sector with right to health assessments, public health participation in developing international agreements, and responsibility for all sectors for improving health outcomes. The FCGH would reinvigorate WHO’s global health leadership, breathing new life into its founding principles. It could become the platform for reforming WHO as a rights-based 21st century institution, with badly-needed reforms, such as community participation, new priorities favouring social determinants of health, and a culture of transparency and accountability. The next Director-General should launch a historic effort to align national and global governance for with human rights through the FCGH, bringing the world closer to global health with justice

Toward a Common Secure Future: Four Global Commissions in the Wake of Ebola

Lawrence Gostin and colleagues offer a set of priorities for global health preparedness and response for future infectious disease threats

Recommendations from the Four Global Commissions Concerning Research and Development—R&D Acceleration.

<p>Recommendations from the Four Global Commissions Concerning Research and Development—R&D Acceleration.</p

Recommendations from the Four Global Commissions Concerning National Health Systems—Core Capacity Financing and Incentives.

<p>Recommendations from the Four Global Commissions Concerning National Health Systems—Core Capacity Financing and Incentives.</p

Recommendations of the WHO Advisory Group.

<p>Recommendations of the WHO Advisory Group.</p

Recommendations from the Four Global Commissions Concerning Global Governance—International Coordination.

<p>Recommendations from the Four Global Commissions Concerning Global Governance—International Coordination.</p

Recommendations from the Four Global Commissions Concerning Research and Development—Financing.

<p>Recommendations from the Four Global Commissions Concerning Research and Development—Financing.</p