Climate Change Program

From the UCLA Newsroom: 

In response to the escalating health emergency that is already inflicting substantial damage on people in Southern California and around the world, the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health has created the UCLA Center for Healthy Climate Solutions.

“Los Angeles is a city that tackles our toughest challenges by tapping into the innovation and creativity in our own backyard, and this UCLA center will help us build a safer, cleaner and more equitable city and world,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. Garcetti is chair of the C40 Cities, a global organization of almost 100 cities committed to action against climate change.

UCLA C-Solutions, as the center will be known, will collaborate with public officials and community partners, including the mayor’s office, to advance research-based strategies for strengthening communities’ ability to adapt to climate change’s harmful health effects and slowing its impact.

“Climate change is the most significant public health disaster we face, with effects that are already being felt and will only become more severe if we don’t take bold and immediate actions,” said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, the co-director of C-Solutions and a UCLA distinguished professor-in-residence of public health and medicine. “If we don’t solve the climate issue, we won’t have a habitable planet. End of story.”

Fielding, a national leader in public health, was Los Angeles County’s public health director and health officer for 16 years and recently co-chaired Healthy People 2030, which set national health objectives for the next decade. He said climate change should no longer be viewed solely as a future problem, but as a current crisis.

In major cities in the U.S. and around the world, more frequent heat waves are causing increased numbers of illnesses and deaths. Hotter and drier conditions are resulting in longer, more intense wildfire seasons. Warmer ocean temperatures have increased the intensity of hurricanes, cyclones, and tropical storms, and the wide-ranging effects range from flooding to a higher incidence of anxiety and depression...

Full news release at https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/center-healthy-climate-solutions