External publications

Global transformation towards planetary health

Strupat, Christoph / Liz Grant / Maike Voss / Katharina Molitor / Sophie Gepp / Alexia Faus Onbargi / Saravanan Subramanian / Anna-Katharina Hornidge
External Publications (2022)

in: T7 Task Force Global Health, 30.03.2022

Open access

We are at a tipping point: the health of the world’s people and the health of the planet’s natural resources on which all life depends are facing unprecedented threats. The human led drivers of economic development, industry and globalisation are causing climate change, pollution of air, soil and water, and biodiversity loss year after year, and these in turn are destroying the animal and human health gains of the last century. In the Anthropocene where humankind have made the world an insecure and precarious place to live, planetary health provides a framework to take rapid, globally-connected action, setting a system in place which can steer the individual investments towards universal health coverage, pandemic preparedness, climate neutrality, clean air, and the reduction of poverty and inequality. The common goal of healthy people flourishing on a healthy planet, which is the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals, is a necessary pursuit. To achieve this we suggest that the G7 utilises planetary health to create a global framework expanding on One Health initiatives. Such a framework can be supported by the G7 in the form of i) better coordination between health and environmental agencies, ii) the development of standards and indicators for planetary health, iii) the better alignment of new global health monitoring initiatives and iv) the prioritization of planetary health in the new pandemic treaty.