• Energy Research

Increasing health and wellbeing in cities that experience water scarcity presents challenges, but can be done, say Howard Frumkin and colleagues

The detrimental impact of visitor-induced litter pollution on ecosystems, wildlife, and overall quality of life emphasizes the urgency of mitigating it. This study uniquely focuses on diverse visitors’ perceptions of littering behavior in open spaces, facilitating comprehensive assessment and targeted mitigation strategies. This study aimed to analyze attitudes, willingness to act, and responsibility perceptions, considering diverse demographics in Israel’s multicultural context. It sought insights into littering rationales, potential remedies, and the identification of relatively acceptable littering behaviors for focused attention. This profound comprehension is crucial for conserving ecologically sensitive open areas, necessitating optimized management for interface preservation. Leveraging insights from an online survey involving 401 recent open-space visitors, this research reveals a disparity between self-professed and actual littering practices. Intriguingly, 32% of participants who claimed never to litter described instances of doing so. Furthermore, disparities emerged between anti-litter attitudes, willingness to act, and individual accountability, which were influenced by demographic variables. While individuals from various demographic cohorts attested to littering behavior, young ultra-Orthodox Jews possessing solely a high school level of education exhibited a proclivity for increased littering. Perceptions predominantly attribute purposeful and recreational motives to littering, rather than substantial reasons. Participants conceive a diverse range of effective strategies to address the issue, highlighting its intricate and multifaceted nature. Consequently, this study advocates for a multifaceted approach combining enhanced enforcement, educational campaigns, informative initiatives, and infrastructural enhancements. By acknowledging the complexities of littering behavior and embracing multifarious interventions, policymakers can enhance the likelihood of successfully curbing this pervasive challenge.

Abstract Background Environmental management in the Israeli health system is driven primarily by safety regulations. Such regulations aim to reduce hazardous exposures to employees, patients, and visitors, as well as some specific aspects of broader environmental toxicity to humans and nature. Most environmental precautions in the system target traditional exposures and do not specifically consider the health system’s own impact on climate change. This article aims to justify incorporating climate change mitigation actions into short- and long-term plans in Israeli health organizations and present a schematic strategic roadmap to do so. Main body Climate change poses many threats to global health, including risks from severe weather events, changes in vector-borne diseases, increased hazardous air pollutants, food and water shortages, and adverse effects on reproductive health. The most effective effort in climate change mitigation is reducing greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. Ignoring the health sector’s emissions contradicts the ancient medical principle: first, do no harm (primum non-nocere). Furthermore, many climate mitigation methods introduce additional health co-benefits. Special attention and medical considerations are needed to safely reduce emissions from the health sector. This article reviews healthcare’s most common emission sources, including energy consumption, transportation, food, waste, supplies, and the supply chain. An organizational carbon management strategy should include recognizing the problem and committing to action, estimating the organizational carbon footprint, developing and prioritizing alternative interventions, and developing a carbon management plan with measurable short- and intermediate-term goals. Conclusion Climate mitigation in the health sector is encompassed by the moral obligation of the Israeli healthcare system to do no harm. Performance measures to support GHG emission reductions should be adopted into the existing, successful Israeli programs of quality measures in medicine, both in the community and hospitals. In addition, Israel academic institutions for health and medical education should incorporate sustainable health into their curricula for students of health professions and as part of continuous medical education. Such policy actions will contribute to a healthy health system that supports climate change mitigation while providing health co-benefits to the Israeli population.

Abstract Extreme energy poverty results from a mix of conditions including lack of access to a reliable and affordable grid-based energy source that meets basic domestic needs. In this paper, we focus on two communities that face multiple complications regarding modern energy and housing infrastructure: Roma neighborhoods in Romania and Bedouin villages in Israel. Our goal is threefold: to map within the two national contexts existing norms, policies and regulation with references to energy poverty; to identify and analyze the main characteristics and challenges associated with extreme energy poverty; finally, to highlight and discuss the nexus of infrastructure, planning and social inequality from the perspective of energy provision. Research methods included regulatory and policy analysis as well as interviews with policy and decision-makers in both countries. We found that, in both national contexts, laws and policies avoid a clear definition of energy poverty, instructions on how to measure it, and a systematic collection of relevant data. At the same time, there are no long-term policies to tackle energy poverty at a national scale. The study also found that policymakers perceive extreme energy vulnerability to be less urgent than other challenges for these excluded communities, and that long-lasting mistrust is a prominent characteristic of extreme energy conditions, as we define for the first time. Our additional contribution is conceptual: we show how informal housing conditions are combined with additional spheres of informalities, and how informal coping strategies with the challenge of energy poverty may be adopted by policymakers.

• Local authority health professionals perceive climate change as a risk to health in the UK.

Motivated by a growing recognition of the climate emergency, reflected in the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26), we outline untapped opportunities to improve health through ambitious climate actions in cities. Health is a primary reason for climate action yet is rarely integrated in urban climate plans as a policy goal. This is a missed opportunity to create sustainable alliances across sectors and groups, to engage a broad set of stakeholders, and to develop structural health promotion. In this statement, we first briefly review the literature on health co-benefits of urban climate change strategies and make the case for health-promoting climate action; we then describe barriers to integrating health in climate action. We found that the evidence-base is often insufficiently policy-relevant to be impactful. Research rarely integrates the complexity of real-world systems, including multiple and dynamic impacts of strategies, and consideration of how decision-making processes contend with competing interests and short-term electoral cycles. Due to siloed-thinking and restrictive funding opportunities, research often falls short of the type of evidence that would be most useful for decision-making, and research outputs can be cryptic to decision makers. As a way forward, we urge researchers and stakeholders to engage in co-production and systems thinking approaches. Partnering across sectors and disciplines is urgently needed so pathways to climate change mitigation and adaptation fully embrace their health-promoting potential and engage society towards the huge transformations needed. This commentary is endorsed by the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) and the International Society for Urban Health (ISUH) and accompanies a sister statement oriented towards stakeholders (published on the societies’ websites).

Risks associated with public health have no borders, as the recent Corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic developing during the course of the workshop,clearly demonstrated. Thus,the challenges climate change pose to society and especially to public health can only be properly met with inter-disciplinary regional collaborations. In January 27-28, 2020, the Eastern Mediterranean Regional Climate Change Adaptation Center (RCCAC) conducted a successful workshop hosted by the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. This workshop initiated the cooperation of a regional community of climate, public health and policy scientists to collaborate on the health-related aspects of climate change in the Eastern Mediterranean. Scientists from Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Cyprus, Germany and Italy participated and presented their state-of-the-art disciplinary research. The outcomes of the workshop laid the ground for close interdisciplinary regional collaboration, which will benefit the people of this vulnerable region.