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Climate change is increasingly recognized as a defining challenge to human health, well-being, and equity, with complex, interconnected impacts on systems, economies, and ecosystems. There is a growing imperative to center health in climate-related policy, planning, and investment decision-making. An ad hoc international committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will conduct a study to identify transformative systems-level strategies that align climate mitigation and adaptation with improvements in global population health, equity, well-being, and economic resilience. The committee will consider empirical evidence and case-based insights to produce recommended approaches for decision-makers across geographies, systems, and scales.
Description
An ad hoc committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will examine the current evidence and develop a principles-based, context-responsive framework (or “Roadmap”) to guide health-centered climate action that is globally relevant and locally adaptable. The Roadmap will seek to identify transformative strategies that prioritize improvements in population health, equity, and well-being, while supporting inclusive economic resilience and fiscal sustainability, recognizing these as core pillars for building sustainable, climate resilient societies within planetary boundaries.
Using systems thinking to assess interdependencies across sectors and scales, the committee will review and examine the evidence to:
· Assess how structural and contextual factors (e.g., governance structures, availability of financial resources, climate vulnerability, health system capacity) shape the feasibility, sequencing, pace, and distributional impacts of systems transformation to improve population health and advance health for all within the context of net-zero transitions. This will include attention to approaches that align economic and financial systems with societal well-being, equity, and sustainability.
· Identify strategic leverage (or entry) points within and across the highest-emitting economic sectors (e.g., energy; heavy industry; agriculture, forestry, and other land use [AFOLU]; transportation) where systemic shifts can most effectively enhance population health and well-being, while delivering co-benefits for climate resilience and long-term economic sustainability.
· Examine how current measurement and evaluation frameworks capture systems-level change and climate-health co-benefits, and identify opportunities to strengthen their relevance, credibility, and usability across diverse national and regional contexts.
Informed by several case examples across national and regional scales that include different economic sectors, the committee will develop strategic, actionable recommendations to support the implementation of transformation efforts aimed at achieving health for all at net-zero emissions. Where evidence is limited or does not yet exist, the committee will draw on its collective expertise and best judgment to inform its recommendations.
Contributors
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Comment on Provisional Committee Appointments
Viewers may communicate with the National Academies at any time over the project's duration. In addition, formal comments on the provisional appointments to a committee of the National Academies are solicited during the 20-calendar day period following the posting of the membership and, as described below, these comments will be considered before committee membership is finalized. We welcome your comments (Use the Feedback link below). Please note that the appointments made to this committee are provisional, and changes may be made. No appointment shall be considered final until we have evaluated relevant information bearing on the committee's composition and balance. This information will include the confidential written disclosures to The National Academies by each member-designate concerning potential sources of bias and conflict of interest pertaining to his or her service on the committee; information from discussion of the committee's composition and balance that is conducted in closed session at its first event and again whenever its membership changes; and any public comments that we have received on the membership during the 20-calendar day formal public comment period. If additional members are appointed to this committee, an additional 20-calendar day formal public comment period will be allowed. It is through this process that we determine whether the committee contains the requisite expertise to address its task and whether the points of views of individual members are adequately balanced such that the committee as a whole can address its charge objectively.
Sponsors
National Academy of Medicine
Novo Nordisk Foundation
Rockefeller-Foundation
Wellcome Trust
Staff
Noah Duff
Lead
Victoria Nichols
Elizabeth Finkelman
Samantha Chao
Major units and sub-units
National Academy of Medicine
Lead
Health and Medicine Division
Collaborator
Organizational Initiatives
Collaborator
Climate Crossroads
Collaborator
National Academy of Medicine Programs
Lead