title: Health, fairness and New Zealand's contribution to global post-2020 climate change action.
abstract: Health and wellbeing have been largely ignored in discussions around climate change targets and action to date. The current public consultation around New Zealand's post-2020 climate target is an opportunity for health professionals to highlight the health implications of climate change. Without urgent global efforts to bring down global GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions, the world is heading towards high levels of global warming, which will have devastating impacts on human health and wellbeing. New Zealand's action to bring down GHG emissions (as part of the global effort) has potential to improve health and reduce costs on the health sector, if health and fairness are put at the centre of policies to address climate change. New Zealand should commit to at least 40 % reductions in GHG emissions by 2030, and zero carbon emissions before 2050, with healthy and fair policies across sectors to enable reaching these targets.
authors.forename: Hayley
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bennett
authors.affiliation: Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand. alex.macmillan@otago.ac.nz.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Macmillan
authors.forename: Rhys
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jones
mesh_terms: D057231:Climate Change; D014943:Global Health; D054624:Health Status Disparities; D006801:Humans; D009520:New Zealand; D011050:Policy Making; D011634:Public Health