IFMSA to COP21: The End of the Beginning

IFMSA > News > IFMSA to COP21: The End of the Beginning

On the 12th of December 2015 -D12 of COP21- 195 countries have used their collective strength to protect the public and forge a legally binding agreement to tackle the growing threat of climate change. Certainly the Agreement is not perfect, but its much better than we expected.

The 12th of December was not only the end of a long process started in Durban with COP17. The Paris Agreement its actually a turning point for a different economic, political and sustainable system. The governments have to start working harder, the civil society and all the citizens around the world have to put pressures on leaders.

alice1 — Alice McGushin at the YOUNGO Press Conference speaking about the Paris Agreement that is critical to public health

During these last three days, the delegation was focused on the texts analysis because several different draft were published. We still advocated for health inclusion in Article 2 and most important, we participated in a YOUNGO press conference, where Alice explained why its so fundamental underline the link between climate change and human health.

She also quoted Margaret Chan saying that: the Paris Agreement, will be the strongest public health agreement.

We also continued to inform and educate people on #climatehealth, publishing an article in the European Sting and taking part to webinar: Line and Sam participated in a webinar Ruta del Clima on climate change and health.

The delegation also attended a side-event at the Climate Generation Area organized by the Center Villerme-Virchow and the World Health Organization on Climate Change and Health raising the recent reports on the link between Climate Change and health as well as the challenges for the upcoming years.

COP21 is just over and we are already thinking about the future. Skander had a meeting with Moroccan and international youth delegates to get IFMSA involved in the next COY12, we had a long debriefing to reflect on our experience and the lessons learnt in order to improve future IFMSA Participation at COP. We aim to create a bridge from COP21 to COP22 and collaborate with the next delegation. We are also happy to follow-up on the membership of IFMSA in the Global Climate and Health Alliance that published a recent document called: Health and Climate in 2015 and beyond.

Article written by Benedetta Rossi (SISM-Italy)

You can watch the video from the day before the adoption of the Paris Agreement below;