Earlier this year, the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, in Santa Marta, Colombia, convened representatives from 57 countries to advance a just, orderly, and equitable transition to green energy. According to a new correspondence published in The Lancet , while the conference’s final report makes a powerful case for a rapid global phase-out, “it overlooks the extraordinary health and health-economic benefits of doing so.”
In the letter, Robbie Parks , PhD, assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and six co-authors explain that the transition away from fossil fuels offers a quintuple win: healthier populations, enhanced energy security, cleaner environments, more resilient and affordable health systems, and effective climate mitigation.
The authors, who are scholars and scientists in sustainability, climate action, communications, and environmental health, offer three concrete recommendations for bringing health into planning for the green transition:
“We must make the case—to the public and policymakers at all levels—that phase-out prevents illness, saves lives, and helps stabilize the supply chains, electricity grids, water supplies, health-care infrastructure, and health workforce on which functioning health systems depend. Metrics and narratives grounded in community harms resonate with lived experience, counter disinformation, and frame the transition around shared prosperity and wellbeing,” the authors write.
Additional co-authors include Julianna Gwiszcz and Edward Maibach, George Mason University; Jessica Newberry Le Vay, University of Oxford; Ebba Malmqvist, Lund University; Courtney Howard, University of Calgary and York University; and Marina Romanello, University College London.
The Lancet
10.1016/S0140-6736(26)01538-2.
Commentary/editorial
People
Health should be key to transitioning away from fossil fuels
19-Aug-2026