New Zealand's Climate Change Commission report: the critical need to address the missing health co-benefits of reducing emissions

The Climate Change Commission's draft report and recommendations provide a pathway towards achieving the New Zealand Government's commitment to net zero emissions by 2050. However, the Commission has not adequately considered the health co-benefits of climate change mitigation. In this viewpoint, we assess how the Commission has considered health co-benefits in the key response domains. Extrapolating UK evidence to the New Zealand context suggests climate change mitigation strategies that reduce air pollution, transition the population towards plant-based diets and increase physical activity via active transport could prevent thousands of deaths per year in coming decades. Substantial health co-benefits would also arise from improved housing, cleaner water, noise reductions, afforestation and more compact cities. The Commission's draft report only briefly mentions many of these health co-benefits, and some are completely absent. We recommend the Commission's final report: (i) use health co-benefits as an explicit frame; (ii) ensure the government's Treaty of Waitangi obligations are met in all the domains covered to maximise benefits for Māori health and wellbeing; (iii) build on the successful COVID-19 response that demonstrated rapid, science-informed and vigorous government action can address major global health threats; (iv) include both public health expertise and Māori health expertise among its commissioners; (v) explain how health co-benefits are likely to generate major cost-savings to the health system.