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The WHO Regional Office for Europe works with the Member States to generate evidence, develop supporting tools and to identify best policy options to minimize the health effects of climate change. The aim of this article is to support the communication and implementation of existing global and regional commitments and priorities to protect health from the adverse effects of climate change.

The paper concludes that:

• The protection of health from the effects of climate change has developed from a niche topic to high-level policy attention, as reflected in international agreements such as the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
• Increasingly, the call to integrate health into all policies and the need to consider climate change in all policies
  are being recognized and implemented.
• Understanding and awareness of health risks from climate change is growing fast within the health community; this needs to be reflected as core elements in training and career development for health professionals.
• The health sector can support and inform policy-making towards the full potential of healthy mitigation through intersectoral action, advocacy, health impact assessment, identifying health cobenefits and win–win policy options and leading by example in reducing its own carbon emissions.
• The health community should be fully engaged in the national intersectoral mechanisms for adaptation to climate change, including contributing to the development of the health components of national adaptation plans, of nationally determined contributions to the UNFCCC and of the national SDG implementation plans.