Pendo Maro, Health Care Without Harm & Health and Environment Alliance, moderated the panel discussions, emphasizing the positive message available with tangible medium and long-term impacts to health, economy, and the environment.

Elena Villalobos, World Health Organization (WHO), emphasized the power of the health community, highlighting the increased participation in climate change negotiations. She acknowledged the progress made through partnerships, especially in advocacy. She indicated the gap between legal framework and action, referring to the Convention´s definition of adverse effects of climate change, including: implications to health; and references to commitments such as reporting of any adaptation and mitigation programmes.

Nick Watts, IFMSA, outlined the outcome from the Summit that took place on 4 December 2011, that produced the Durban Declaration on Climate and Health. He highlighted the key actions: education and research coordination efforts; mitigation and adaptation within the health system; nationally-based advocacy, reframing issues to the public health sector as a mechanisms to mobilize society; and recognition of the utility of other platforms in addition to the UNFCCC process. He said “although we may be leaving COP 17 without a deal, we do not leave without hope and optimism, looking to the future with re-motivation.”

Shu-Ti Chiou, International Network of Health Promoting Hospital & Health Services, explained the role of the health sector in the climate change crisis, urging for: advocacy; example setting in lowering greenhouse gas emissions; and promotion of health and environmental co-benefits such as breastfeeding. She celebrated the power of the health sector having a credible voice on health issues, sharing examples from Taiwan in the establishment of environmentally- friendly hospitals.

Ensuing discussions focused on: ability of communities to influence climate negotiations; utilization of existing instruments; exposure to harmful chemicals in hospitals; gender issues and potential for disaggregating data to provide evidence of social implication of climate change; education challenges and opportunities; links to financing; and risk reduction.

Roger-Mark De Souza, Population Action International, suggested that reproductive health, family planning and adaptation strategies could be one of the critical requirements to address climate change threats. He stressed the need for funding mechanisms that empower women through increasing access to family planning and reproductive health.

Jane O’Sullivan, Sustainable Population Australia, emphasized that giving women control of their fertility will empower them to deal with the effects of climate change. She called for adoption of family planning programmes to effectively reduce family size and population growth. O´Sullivan said that, without a political focus on population, support for family planning and reproductive health withers, fertility reduction slows, and population increment reverses.

Dingaan Mithi, Journalists Association Against AIDS (JournAIDS), Malawi, spoke of his country’s many women who struggle with access to reproduction control mechanisms, and stressed that degradation, due to population pressure, is a problem in Malawi. He called for political will and policy mechanisms to enhance capacity building and education through media outreach programmes, and emphasized that family planning has to be very high on the agenda.

Esther Agbarakwe, PAI Advocacy Fellow, Nigeria, urged political stakeholders from the UN to better equip themselves on the issue of gender and the youth. She noted that the world has exceeded the 7 billion mark, and underlined that her peers will spend the next forty years de-carbonizing the earth, since they will inherit a planet submitted to climate change.

Negash Teklu, Population, Health and Environment (PHE) Ethiopia Consortium, told of the rise in population growth in Ethiopia, and explained the integrated approach taken in his country. He said it is possible to scale up family planning views, and warned success in reaching the Millennium Development Goals can only be achieved through success in population, health and environment interventions.

Isaac Kabango, Climate Action Network, Uganda, urged for immediate action and stressed that the problem is moral and requires a brave, clear and immediate approach. He insisted that resilience cannot be addressed by one institution alone, but requires a multi-stakeholder approach. He condemned the perspective of politicians to focus on markets and voters, and called for inclusion of informal structures such as indigenous community leaders.

During the ensuing discussion, participants spoke about: the direct link between population density and carbon emissions; mitigation strategies in relation to population growth; policy gaps and political rhetoric that fail to address the real issues; community ownership; and specific challenges and strategies regarding climate change.

Matthias Duwe, Ecologic Institute, framed discussions, commenting on the missing data to understand the complexity of resource availability, cultural and traditional factors and climatic conditions.

Carola Betzold, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), outlined findings from a recent media-based, preliminary study, indicating drivers for conflict, including the: political environments; and demand side such as socio-economic factors. She added that climate change is an indirect influence to water-related conflicts.

Jennifer Helgeson, Initiatives of Change, explained efforts by her institution to create a worldwide network to build trust to equitably share resources, with a focus on land restoration. She described the complicated web connecting climate change and human security.

Sergio Zelaya Bonilla, UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), reviewed the objectives of UNCCD to: improve living conditions of affected populations; improve conditions of affected ecosystems; generate global benefits; and mobilize resources. He identified areas of synergy such as food security, climate change, and biodiversity. He lamented that missing from these discussions were the farmers and agroforesters who could share valuable knowledge.

Martin Frick, Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G), discussed challenges in the art of diplomacy, including: lack of certainty in climatologically averages creating a false understanding of potential outcomes and possible political compromises; and climate vulnerability whereas climate is a threat multiplier. He identified the need for integrated policies to manage risk and a multilateral approach, saying that women are key drivers for sustainable development.

James Thurlow, UNU World Institute for Development Economics, provided insights into a case study from Niger that concluded that ecosystems services change in availability and access due to conflict, and additionally, conflicts over natural resources are aggravated by anthropogenic climate change.

John Dennis Liu, Environmental Media Project (EEMP)/IUCN, illustrated a successful model for large-scale restoration of degraded ecosystems. He advocated for redefining the economy to go beyond production and consumption, which denies access to marginalized communities and fails to value ecosystem services.