International nursing leader to talk to Trump about climate change

An international nursing leader on environmental health says she will seek talks with US President Donald Trump about climate change

An international nursing leader on environmental health said she will lead a delegation of nurses to the White House to talk to US President Donald Trump about climate change.

Mr Trump is 'not as based in evidence as nurses', but this will not stop important work on the issue of climate change, University of San Francsico professor Barbara Sattler said at the International Council of Nursing 2017 congress in Barcelona on Monday.

Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) nations said at the weekend they had failed to bridge differences over climate change with Mr Trump and the US did not commit to the Paris Agreement on greenhouse gas emissions.

Based in evidence

Dr Sattler said: 'I am heartened by how many people around the world do understand the crisis of climate change.

'It is really important to us (as nurses that) we are based in scientific evidence, and the president is having some difficulties wrapping his head around this concept.

'Last year, under the Obama administration, we took 20 nursing leaders to the White House to talk about nurses' roles in climate change.

'We are going to ask for another table to be set in the Trump administration – we are going to talk to him about our concerns through that health lens with which nurses view climate change.'

Vulnerable affected

Dr Sattler said the consequences on health of failing to properly address the issue of climate change included:

• Droughts and floods affecting the ability to provide food globally.
• Changes in vectors carrying diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.
• Increased air pollution causing a rise in asthma and other respiratory diseases.

'All of which will most affect our most vulnerable populations, such as the elderly and infirm, children, migrants and other populations that are vulnerable,' Dr Sattler said.

Democratic process

She added that despite the president's stand on climate change, the US was 'able to right itself' because of its democratic processes.

'Within the health sector globally, as well as in the US, (this is) not stopping the forward trajectory of our work on climate change.

'We will continue with the progress we are making – we will accelerate that, (with) more happening at community and state levels, and we are going to see that pressure moving up.'

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