28 August 2008: In this report, subtitled “Health equity
through action on the social determinants of health,” the World Health
Organization’s (WHO) Commission on Social Determinants of Health calls for
closing the health gap in a generation and outlines the requirements for developing
solutions to the inequities between and within countries.

The Commission
recognizes the implications of climate change for the global health system and
its impact on the way of life and health of individuals and the planet. It
stresses the need to bring the health equity and climate change agendas
together and to balance the needs of social and economic development, health
equity and the urgency of dealing with climate change. Among its
recommendations, the Commission underscores the need to ensure that economic
and social policy responses to climate change and other environmental
degradation take into account health equity.
It also specifically notes that
climate change poses a significant challenge to the current model of
urbanization, with the current main greenhouse gas emissions being determined
mainly by consumption patterns in cities of the developed world, making
tackling climate change and reducing global health inequities interrelated. [The
Report] [The
Executive Summary]