New Lancet Countdown Policy Brief for Germany confirms considerable need for action

The report, which involves 38 leading academic institutions and UN agencies worldwide, is published by the journal "The Lancet". It comes to the following central conclusions:

•     Germany is only inadequately prepared for the health challenges of climate change.
•     Despite a growing awareness of the situation's seriousness among those with political responsibility, concrete measures to prevent climate-related health risks and to combat climate change have yet to be taken.
•     Only a few municipalities have implemented heat action plans so far.
•     Also, the high CO2 emissions of the health system have been reduced only insignificantly in recent years

This year's review serves as an overview of the progress made in the last two years and predicts a clear need for action in the coming years.

"It is not enough for individuals to change their behaviour. We also have to change the circumstances. Unfortunately, this has happened in far too few places so far," says Prof. Sabine Gabrysch, Professor of Climate Change and Health at the Charité and Head of the Climate Resilience Research Department at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. "We need clear responsibilities for this at all levels in the health sector and in politics. Climate protection and climate adaptation must become a priority, because our livelihoods and our health are at stake."

The review criticises the fact that only a few communities have comprehensive heat action plans or that they have not implemented existing ones. Important actors in the health system have hardly been involved so far. Efforts to reduce the CO2 footprint of the health sector (approx. 5% of total German emissions) have hardly been made in the past two years.

In the education and training of health professionals, processes have been initiated to integrate climate change and health or planetary health into the curricula - but these are still in their infancy.

With the progress review, the authors therefore recommend new legal regulations and a clarification of responsibilities, the involvement of the public health service and the civil protection and disaster management as well as action scenarios for unexpected extreme situations such as in the summer of 2021 in Canada. Heat victims due to death or illness must be systematically recorded.