The newly released European State of the Climate 2024 annual report (ESOTC), co-published by the European Union’s Copernicus Earth observation program and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), confirms what public health experts have long warned about: the health costs of climate change in Europe are rising fast, and so is the human toll.
In response to stated plans by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to strengthen ties with a trade association whose members continue to produce highly hazardous pesticides harmful to human health and the environment, HEAL and over three hundred other organizations in over 60 countries have sent a letter to Director-General Qu Dongyu opposing the alliance.
The proposed collaboration with CropLife — whose members include BASF, Bayer Crop Science, Corteva Agriscience, FMC and Syngenta, and who combined make more than one-third of their sales income from highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) — directly undermines the FAO’s priority of a progressive ban on HHPs, as well as its role as a global leader supporting innovative approaches to agricultural production and advancing food security, sustainability, and resilience.
