Climate Action Work Group

Purpose

The Climate Action Working Group works to provide leadership and advocacy for increased adoption and action on priority matters relating to climate action in eye health for IAPB Members and other stakeholders. It was established in 2017 as an initiative of the IAPB.

There is a great political drive now for the eye health sector to push the climate action agenda forward. The United Nations has declared climate change as an emergency and the World Health Organization has stated that climate change affects the social and environmental determinants of health. More recently, in 2021, the Lancet Commission on Global Eye Health added Planetary Health as a key component to improving quality of eye care.

Strategies

The Climate Action Working Group (CAWG) will prioritise the following overarching strategies:

1. Create greater awareness, understanding, ownership, and buy-in of and networking around the importance of climate action and eye health with IAPB leadership, members and more widely
2. Develop, collate, curate and share resources, evidence, approaches, strategies, case studies, research, innovations and best practice models relating to climate action in eye health and day-to-day work and design of eye care services that can reduce carbon footprint.
3. Engage IAPB with wider networks to build a broader alignment with climate action in health (e.g. the ‘Global Green and Healthy Hospitals network and various networks in the countries where members are based)
4. Seek to make IAPB and its events as environmentally sustainable as possible
5. Develop annual workplans for achieving work group strategies, and report progress to IAPB board and members

Meetings

This active group is currently comprised of 17 members and meets several times a year. Opportunities for face-to-face meetings are sought around other events that may already see the attendance of the Work Group members.

Membership of the Climate Action Work Group is open to all IAPB members engaged in climate action.

All Work Group members are expected to actively contribute their expertise and knowledge to ensure the group meets its stated objectives.

Get involved with the Climate Action Work Group

For more information on the Climate Action Work Group and how to get involved, get in touch!