Why mental health is a priority for action on climate change

On 22 May 2022, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanmon Ghebreyesus (centre) and his daughter Blen (second from left) arrive at the Walk the Talk event with Head of WHO's Climate Change and Health Unit Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum (right), and Dr Mark Hayden (second from right) and Dr Heather Lambert (left) from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland's National Health Service (NHS). The NHS health workers carried a blue satchel with the Climate Change and Health Report signed by Dr Tedros, which was relayed by bicycle by Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum to Glasgow for COP26 in October 2021. Children from the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London contributed messages to the report. Heather and Mark also carried an agreement that WHO has signed with NHS England which has made the ambitious pledge to become carbon neutral by the 2040s. A new joint unit will be established, supported by NHS England, to support other countries to match or better this goal. Dr Hayden and Dr Lambert are both paediatricians. Dr Hayden works at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, and in 2021 organized the �Ride for Their Lives� on behalf of child health professionals wanting to speak up about the threat that climate change and air pollution poses to the future of the children that they treat. This group have since organized rides between hospitals in the UK, and will be organizing many more in the coming months. Dr Lambert works at Newcastle Hospital, the first health care organization in the world to declare a climate emergency.