]. While not a meteorological fact, it is nonetheless commonly believed that every cloud has a silver lining. It seems they may also have a developed sense of irony as within days of announcing plans to pull the United States out of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Paris Agreement, President Trump moved to show his climate credentials by proposing to cover his Mexican border wall with solar panels. Despite such changes, The Lancet has noted that the response to the cloud of climate change could offer "…the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century…" [1]. After all, while environmental and public health professionals are sensitised to the link between climate and health, key decisions on the necessary policy shifts in energy or transport are made elsewhere. These decisions must take health considerations into account [2] and health professionals have a key role to play in ensuring this connection between climate, environment and health. In such a complex space it can be difficult to see which position health professionals should take. In response to this question and, in particular, in support of the Marrakesh Ministerial Declaration on Health, Environment and Climate Change, a working group of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) Environment and Health Committee (EHC) has proposed ten principles for climate, environment and respiratory health. This editorial outlines these principles, which are as follows: Climate change is real Each of first 6 months of 2016 sequentially broke the record as the hottest month since records began. Two key climate change indicators, global surface temperature and Arctic sea ice, continue to break records driven by rising concentrations of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere [3]. Preliminary data shows that 2016's global temperatures are approximately 1.2°C above pre-industrial levels according to an assessment by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) [4]. In an aptly named Climate Change Factsheet, the European Commission warns that "…the polar ice caps are melting, sea levels rising and glaciers retreating. Sea level rise threatens the existence of low-lying island states and coastal communities. The melting of glaciers is putting millions of people at risk of floods and will eventually deprive them of fresh water resources…" [5]. Our climate is changing, not in a removed, abstract manner but in a way which has very concrete effects on our well-being.
]. June 2017 saw the annual European Respiratory Society (ERS) Presidential Summit in Ghent, Belgium. Entitled "A public health approach to respiratory health", the summit brought together respiratory specialists and public health voices to discuss what respiratory health now means in terms of public health [1]. In looking at public health and disease prevention, the summit took up themes from the The European Lung White Book [2] with debate centred on public health pyramid for respiratory health [3], while drawing on approaches from other disease areas [4].
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