Where is health in Sustainable Development? Views from the Coordinator of IFMSA’s Think Global Initiative at the Rio+20 2nd Intersessional

‘Your here with who?’ (accompanied by a puzzled look) this was the response I got from the person sitting next to me, early one cold Wednesday morning in NYC, whilst waiting for a training to start on how civil society can engage with the Rio+20 process. As I explained to him who I was and why I was there he seemed to brighten up, but I think was still a little confused as to why medical students were in attendance at this meeting and secondly why they would have the slightest bit of interest in Rio+20. This seemed to exemplify the reaction I got from a few people at this meeting but as I grew more confident in what exactly I was doing there it seemed that people were starting to switch on to why health was important to this process and what we in the health community could bring to it.

So to begin with I though I would start by introducing what the Rio+20 summit is, it is the UN conference on Sustainable development and is called Rio+20 because it is 20 years after the original Earth Summit in 1992. Back then the whole conference was about environment, and now it is about all three pillars of sustainable development: economic, social and environment. The main outcome of this conference that people have been talking about for months now is a roadmap to a green economy, though there does seem to be little consensus to what a green economy actually is.

Back to the Intersessional, it was a two day event at UN HQ in NYC last week with a training day for stakeholders the day before. The aim of the Intersessional was to decide the format of the zero draft which is currently being compiled. The zero draft is a text which is most likely going to be about 18 pages long and condense down the 30,000 pages of text from over 600 stakeholders (governments and civil society groups) of which the IFMSA is one of them see this link . The Zero draft is due to be released next month on the 22nd January and will be published on the Rio+20 website.

For the few days I was in New York I had embedded myself within the Major Group for Children and Youth (MGCY), the resolution from the UN GA creating the summit allowed for a great deal of civil society participation organised around 7 major groups. This group were an interesting mix of both young people and organisations working with young people e.g. UNICEF, though it must be noted that they mostly had a strictly environmental focus. Since the IFMSA and health community in general are coming to this rather late in the process it was best for us to work through them for the time being.

The Plenaries themselves were slightly tedious, I was involved with tracking for MGCY which consisted of sitting listening to all the speakers and identifying policy positions and sticking them on a google doc then identifying which countries shared the exact same position. Given that most countries said variations of the exact same thing I was ready to kill myself if I ever heard the phrases ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ or ‘short, concise political statement’ and generally talked about the environment. A few exceptions to this were some Latin American countries who did not believe in the private sector, Island states talking about a Blue Economy and the US who wanted a ‘5 page non-binding aspirational political statement’ that the average person on the street could understand with a compendium of voluntary commitments The upside of these sessions each civil society grouping got to submit a position statement, check out the MGCY one which has some mention of health and also the Indigenous Peoples one for being probably the most radical thing I heard in those few days.

The interesting bit of the session was the side events, suddenly from not hearing the world health mentioned at all I started to see the relevance. In particular in sessions around sustainable agriculture, cities and the creation of Sustainable Development goals.  The cities and agriculture all talked about environments to create healthy lives and although I don’t think we could input on the technical stuff I think the health community has a lot to contribute in terms of framing these arguments (reducing the amount of cattle reared etc..). The really interesting session was that by the Colombian government who have proposed creating Sustainable Development Goals to compliment the MDGs with health potentially acting as a key indicator.

To finish up I think I will just say where can the IFMSA fit in and what should our plans be moving forward from this:

- Health currently isn’t being mentioned much so making sure the conference does take into account the social aspect of Sustainable Development.

- Promoting health as a key indicator of well being and as a central part of alternative economic indicators to GDP.

- Acting as a go between for various health groups which we made initial contact with at the intersessional to form an alliance of health groups around Rio.

- Generally encouraging health professionals to be part of the wider civil society mobilisation around Rio.

- Develop a policy statement on Sustainable Development

On January 22nd the Bureau will release the Zero Draft and also the schedule for events running up to Rio as well as what if any civil society participation will be allowed, before then we should have formed a SWG on sustainable development to work together in the run up to Rio.

Thanks reading this and have a Happy Holidays,

Mike Kalmus Eliasz

(TG Coordinator)

IFMSA@COP17: Durban, the aftermath

IFMSA Friends and Climate Enthusiasts!

At 5:16am on Sunday the 11th of December 2011, the world finally came to agreement on a way forward for international action on Climate Change. Whether or not the results of the summit are the positive kick the world needed or not, remains to be seem.
There were four key outcomes of the ‘Durban Package’:
· The Green Climate Fund: Nations agreed on a management and trustee structure for international financial flows for climate change adaptation. The fund is intended to contain in excess of 100 billion USD by 2020, and is filling up fast with the UK already contributing well over its quota, with 3.6 Billion GBP!!! The fund is to be managed by a rotating mix of high and low income countries, under the stewardship of the World Bank’s Global Environmental Facility. It is expected to be operational and directing financial resource within the next 12 months.

· The Durban Platform for Enhanced Action: With great compromise and tough negotiations, the world was able to agree to the need for a new negotiation track to be commenced in 2012 known as the AWG-DPEA. There are a number of key differences about this track which are different from the previous two, which will allow it to break political deadlock which has doomed the post-COP15 discussions. Firstly, the AWG-DPEA will depart from the ‘High income countries lead’ principle, require India, Brazil and China to take part in the discussions as primary emitters, with serious mitigation responsibilities. Second, the world is finally agreed that whatever outcome is decided on, must have nationally enforceable legal outcomes/instruments/protocols. The AWG-DPEA is set to be designed by 2015, and implemented no later than 2020.

· Long Term Cooperative Action: In response to the above AWG-DPEA, the current negotiation track known as the AWG-LCA is set to expire and dissolve at COP18 in favour of the new framework.

· The Kyoto Protocol: Our beloved Kyoto Protocol (the only framework in existence which commits high income countries to actual emissions reductions) was saved… kind of. It’s complicated, but one of three options could have emerged from Durban. 1) the Kyoto Protocol could have been strengthened in to KP-2, with much stronger global commitments, 2) the Kyoto Protocol could be kept much as is, leaving it toothless in regards to mitigation action, but valuable as a framework for international carbon markets, 3) the entire Kyoto Protocol could have dissolved, backtracking on a decade of work! The best the world could muster was option 2), with the KP valiantly saved by the desperate efforts of the European Union, partnering with the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS). So, for the moment, the KP is kept alive, but is hanging on a very thin thread, with countries such as Canada, Japan and Russia keen to see it axed once and for all.

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So what do we think about all this? Well, whilst it breaks political deadlock, taking action by 2020 is simply too slow for an earth which is being pushed beyond its tipping point. Best available evidence from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends a peak in global emissions by 2017 at the very latest to avoid the catastrophic effects of runaway climate change – current political negotiations put us on track to miss this deadline! On the other hand, it breaks a complicated political deadlock between the US, China, the EU and India in a way that allows the world to move forward together.
Regardless of your perspective, you can count on us to be present at all of the intersessionals, and COP18 in Doha, to make sure that the world reaches a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty on climate change that safeguards the international right to Health for All.

Nick and the IFMSA COP17 Team

IFMSA@COP17: What have we achieved in the COP frenzy?

Dear IFMSA friends!

We’re writing to you at the close of the 17th Conference of the Parties under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP17). Negotiations have been going for a full two weeks (with the high-level segment running two days overtime!) But, at 5:16am, on Sunday morning we finally have a deal. In our last post, we’ll summarise our work in Durban and the way forward to COP18 in Doha and the Earth Summit in Rio.

At COP, the IFMSA had a number of key objectives, and we can proudly say that we achieved all of these with overwhelming success!

Incorporate Health in to the UN Text on Climate Change
Following from our phenomenal success in Cancun (COP16), where the IFMSA was instrumental in writing over 1/3rd of the UN text on Education, Training and Public Awareness, we had a lot to live up to.
This year, the delegation focused on: seeing the inclusion of health expertise in many of the expert working groups under the convention; taking appropriate steps to defend water security and sanitation for the world’s Least Developed Nations; recognising Health as a key justification for climate action; and galvanising countries together around human health and development.
Negotiations surrounding water security and its cross-sectoral integration went very well. Despite resistance from a few nations who were wary of the additional costs to be incurred, we were able to use our policy statements to take a strong stance alongside the rest of world youth. The result is a strong technical and surveillance body to watch over this issue and report back to the COP as necessary.
By supporting the positions of a number of Majority World Nations, and the World Health Organisation, we were able to strongly advocate for (and draft!!!!) a paragraph on The Protection and Promotion of Public Health, in the “Social and Economic Impacts” section of the new text.
This was aided by a clever idea which helped to bring together the Africa Group, ALBA and AOSIS on a common ideal, health. Half way through the conference, every country gives a ‘National Statement’, which outlines their position in the negotiations and how they expected to proceed forward. The idea was simple, the IFMSA would work to get as many countries as possible making specific mention to the human cost of climate change and the resulting urgency of the negotiations. This was received phenomenally well, with Ethiopia (on behalf of all African countries) making specific mention to just that, as well as similar statements from countless other countries. How did we do it?!? We printed fliers, small cards, and sent emails with a single sentence, encouraging all nations who were willing to stand together on this issue. With systematic advocacy from a team where most had all received climate change and advocacy training through the IFMSA, this was immensely effective. The result – a strong platform for health in the upcoming intersessionals.

Bringing Together the International Health Community
Having worked tirelessly to register other health NGOs, ensure all were prepared for COP, and even contributing to the first ever Climate-Health summit with Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), we can now say that the health community has finally arrived at COP.
Members of the delegation were present as speakers in over ten side events and constantly networking through our stall (strategically situated next to the WHO). In addition to this, the IFMSA conducted a brief (invited) publicity stunt in a press conference, in which students dressed up in doctors coats with stethoscopes and gathered around a sick earth. They were taking its temperature, showing that it was coming dangerously close to 2 degrees of global aggregate warming. This was received remarkably well by conference participants, and gained us a lot of allies in the coming days.
Over the past 12 months, the IFMSA has been leading a network of Health NGOs interested in Climate Change with the technical support of the WHO. In Durban, this culminated in a Climate-Health summit (organised by HCWH), where over 250 participants attended a full day of incredibly engaging lectures and panels from the likes of Kumi Naidoo (Executive Director of Greenpeace), the South African Minister for Health, and Diarmid Cambell-Lendrum ( Head of the WHO Climate Change and Health Unit). One day later, a meeting of the heads of each of the involved organisations was called, and a plan for the future was agreed. The group will re-convene in March 2012 to discuss preparations for the Rio+20 Earth Summit in June of next year.

Post-COP17
It’s been a roller-coaster of a 6 months, preparing for this historic conference, and ensuring that our delegation could engage and hit the ground running (and believe us, we did!). At the close of COP, there was an agreement among IFMSA delegates to continue on ‘Immune to fatigue’.
We’ll be following up on our relationships with key organisations like HEAL, HCWH and the WHO, and contributing strongly to the emerging health NGO network. We’ll also be working hard to ensure that a constant stream of training on Climate Change, Health and Advocacy is achieved in the coming 6 months.
We look to the UNCSD Intersessional in 1 week, the UNFCCC Intersessional in March 2012, the Rio+20 Earth Summit in June 2012, and COP18 in December 2012 as key dates for engagement, and will be calling for delegations to these conferences shortly!
In closing, a huge congratulations to the IFMSA COP17 Team on an amazing effort and our most successful COP ever!

Nick and the IFMSA COP17 Team