In a letter to Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, Environmental Minister Barbara Creecy and the Presidency, James Irlam of the Public Health Association of SA said the country should build a just and sustainable country after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Johannesburg - The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges that South Africa will face as the climate crisis grows.
A Just Recovery report released this week calls for a people-centred recovery from the pandemic to overcome existing inequalities. "We have been informed that Minister Creecy advised a group of climate change stakeholders during a meeting on June 1 that the terms of reference for this Commission were being finalised."
"We align ourselves with international and national efforts ... to lay the foundations of a new economy that lives within the planet's natural limits and emphasises human health and the wellbeing of our life-support system.
"We appreciate that South Africa is still very much in the midst of the Covid-19 storm, imposing an enormous strain on our national, provincial and local public health resources." "In its recently issued ‘Manifesto for a healthy recovery from Covid-19’, the WHO has warned that we cannot afford repeated disasters on the scale of Covid-19, whether they are triggered by the next pandemic, or from mounting environmental damage and climate change."Government decisions in the coming months must avoid locking SA into economic development patterns that will do permanent and escalating damage to the ecological systems that sustain all human health and livelihoods.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Ramaphosa closes public schools for a month during Covid-19 peak, matrics for one weekBREAKING NEWS: President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that public schools will close for a month during Covid-19 peak, but matric pupils and their teachers will only close for one week. SchoolsClosing Covid19SA
Read more »
Mabuyane challenges public to report alleged corruption over COVID-19 funds
Read more »
250 new deaths and 13944 more Covid-19 infections for SAHealth Minister Zweli Mkhize has announced 250 more deaths owing to Covid-19, as well as 13944 new infections, taking the total confirmed cases over 421 000. Only India and the USA had more new cases than SA on Friday. Covid19SA
Read more »
COVID-19 in SA: 572 new deaths reportedThe country's recovery rate has improved even further to 58 percent.
Read more »
572 new deaths, 13150 more Covid-19 infections for SA
Read more »
Nearly 600 deaths in a single day as SA approaches 400,000 Covid-19 casesMkhize told a roomful of hospital managers from Dora Nginza, Livingstone hospital and Uitenhage Provincial hospital that there should be no more delays in releasing the figures.
Read more »