Conference outcomes

Over the course of the conference, delegates were involved in heated debates particularly on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; however, some agreement was finally reached on the meeting's agendas, paving the way for the adoption of conclusions with consultations continuing into the evening in the final days on a number of issues including:

• The implementation of the Loss and Damage Fund
• The Global Goal on Adaptation; and
• The Global Stocktake Process under the Paris Agreement.

Between 2030 - 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year due to malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress (WHO). Climate policy that prioritises health outcomes is now more important that ever and it was heartening to observe ongoing discussions for health are moving in the right direction at SB58:

• World Health Organisation (WHO), together with Global Climate and Health Alliance, Wellcome Trust and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, held a side event that was seeking new avenues of thinking about how to factor health into Global Stocktake which involved unpacking lessons from health in the context of national adaptation plans allowing Global Stocktake to consider each country in terms of what it needs to prioritise actions to protect health. Global Climate and Health Alliance is now rethinking the approach to refine policy push for COP28 to accelerate and shift paradigm towards different level action to bridge different agencies to collaboratively address health issues at interdisciplinary level.
• While the healthcare community is sceptical about COP28 having one specific day devoted to health (targeted at the host) there is no doubt that there is an increasing engagement of the healthcare community seeking to make the political leaders accountable for health outcomes.

Despite robust discussions, anticipated outcomes and overall progress on the following critical areas were unfortunately not met:

• Being unable to agree on recommending a host for the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage:
  The Santiago Network on Loss and Damage (SNLD) was established at COP25 to connect vulnerable developing countries with providers of technical assistance, knowledge, resources they need to address and mitigate the adverse effects of climate change. Find out more about the Santiago Network here.
• Not advancing the developmental framework for achieving the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA)
  Established under the Paris Agreement, the GGA was established to enhance work on adaptation with the aim of building adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience, and reducing vulnerability to climate change. At COP26, Parties established the 2022-2023 Glasgow-Sharm el-Sheikh (GlaSS) Work Programme on the Global Goal on Adaptation to define the key elements of the goal, including the methodologies, indicators, metrics, and data sources to support the assessment of overall adaptation progress. Find out more about the Global Goal of Adaptation here.
• Only noting an indicative draft structure of the decision on the Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement (GST)
  The GST  is a process for taking stock of the implementation of the Paris Agreement with the aim to assess the world’s collective progress towards achieving the purpose of the agreement and its long-term goals. Find out more about the Global Stocktake here and here.