On Wednesday 25 November, in preparation for the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, the Lancet launched The Health Benefits of Tackling Climate Change Report.

The report, a collaboration with several health and medical institutions including the Wellcome Trust, UK Department of Health, Royal College of Physicians, and Academy of Medical Sciences, among others, highlights the potential health benefits to climate change mitigation.

The report argues that while climate change will harm human health, successful strategies to mitigate the extent of climate change will restrict that harm. The Lancet research shows appropriate mitigation strategies will have additional and independent, positive effects on health. Such benefits can help offset at least some of the costs of climate change mitigation. Unfortunately their potential value has not so far been given sufficient prominence in international negotiations.

Mitigation examples featured in the report include moving to low-emission stove technology for burning local biomass fuels in poor countries which could, over time, avert millions of premature deaths, and constitute one of the strongest and most cost-effective climate-health linkages. Reducing greenhouse-gas emissions will require more walking and cycling and less motor vehicle use, which will bring substantial health benefits, including reduced cardiovascular disease, depression, diabetes, and dementia. Reducing consumption of animal source foods could also have great benefits for cardiovascular health – cuts in producing food from livestock will be necessary to meet substantial cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.

As countries consider reducing greenhouse gas emissions and investments in ‘clean’ development, potential health benefits or consequences should be weighed carefully. As the Lancet report makes clear, further research, methodological development, and analytical work are needed to prioritise mitigation in different sectors and regions. Since trillions of dollars are likely to be spent on greenhouse gas mitigation in the next decades, it is essential to allocate the comparatively small health research resources needed to guide these investments in order to bring the world closer to both its health and climate goals.

Download the executive summary here.