Spotlight on Mita Huq

Congratulations on being selected to join UCL’s delegation attending the 27th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh this November. What motivated your application to attend COP27?

Thank you for your congratulations, I am excited to be attending my first COP this November!

My interest in COP27 was driven by my work with the Envisioning Environmental Equity project, an international, collaborative initiative that seeks to promote anti-racist and anti-colonial dimensions of the climate and health conversation. I am excited to join my colleagues from around the world in Egypt to share our work on the EEE project and contribute our work on illustrating the impact of climate change on the health of minoritised communities in Brazil, the Philippines, and Uganda. Climate change does not impact us equally, where those who contribute the least to this crisis bear its burden. This difference, combined with the colonial roots of this crisis and its inherent impact on health highlights the importance of climate and health justice for strategies designed to address climate change.

Taking part in COP27 is an opportunity to inform and influence global leaders’ decision-making and policies on climate change. How are you preparing for the conference and what key issues are you hoping to raise?

As this is my first COP, I’ve been told by colleagues with former COP experience that conversations about climate justice and colonialism can feel like an echo chamber, where those who bring these themes to the table are, due to the nature and structure of past COPs, consistently placed in front of one another rather than in front of decision-makers and target audiences relevant to the system level changes that we are attempting to touch. In lieu of this, I’m excited to see that the partnerships we established and the materials we will be sharing has the potential to draw interest from stakeholders of diverse perspectives, and it is my hope that we can participate in growing climate and health justice values for those involved in higher level decision-making spaces.

We are hoping to engage individuals located in the climate and health space in conversations around equity and justice through an anti-racist, anti-colonial lens. While we have research and films to support our discussions, we are ultimately hoping to join and fuel conversations about how climate justice as a framework can be adopted across issues related to climate and health. We are developing programming around justice-oriented discussions around loss and damage for health, health systems, decolonising climate education, storytelling, film-based events, and even some podcasting activities. As we ramp up to these events, our team is placing final touches on our docuseries, reaching out to experts, and connecting with likeminded people to collaborate with in Egypt.

Climate change is bringing major health risks to populations everywhere. Do you have a message you would like to share with students and colleagues in the Faculty of Population Health Sciences?

Homing in on the root cause of these issues is and has always been core to our work in public health. In terms of climate change’s negative impact on our health, we can trace the propellants of this relationship to extraction and colonialism, which in turn creates differences in whose health is the most impacted, differences in capacities to adapt, and differences in climate change decision-making. When we trace these relationships back to colonialism and confront how history persists in our current work within climate and health action, we are better equipped to create strategies that tackle the root cause of climate-related health outcomes. In this vein, climate-related health inequities, climate and health justice, and the systems of power that create these outcomes are inherent to our practice. As our work in this area progresses, I hope that we can continue to apply attention to equity and justice and find new and innovative ways to platform those most impacted by this crisis.

Lastly, what is your overriding hope for COP27 to achieve?

Within the health and climate space, I am hoping to see health professionals, policymakers, and activists convene on justice and equity. Knowing that this network already fosters these themes gives me hope that we can hasten our momentum. I am specifically hoping that this COP will centre MAPA communities, platform their needs and priorities, and influence discussions where resources and responsibility take centre stage.

Links

• Envisioning Environmental Equity
• UCL Institute for Global Health
• UCL Climate Hub: a community for change