--- title: The G20 Must Defend the Paris Agreement — For Our Health description: G20 countries need to be the champions of action on climate change, which is already making millions sicker around the world canonical: https://time.com/4848133/g20-paris-climate-accord-health/ author: Ashish Jha article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-07-07T14:44:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:44:45.211Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The G20 Must Defend the Paris Accord — For the Sake of Our Health og:description: 'Think of climate change as one big pre-existing condition' og:url: https://time.com/4848133/g20-paris-climate-accord-health/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdced4c69f6c976cc/6988d4d6096a94d81069eaf5/g20-summit-paris-climate-agreement-2017-accord-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3177 og:image:height: 1787 og:image:alt: TOPSHOT-GERMANY-G20-SUMMIT og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The G20 Must Defend the Paris Accord — For the Sake of Our Health twitter:description: 'Think of climate change as one big pre-existing condition' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdced4c69f6c976cc/6988d4d6096a94d81069eaf5/g20-summit-paris-climate-agreement-2017-accord-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The G20 Must Defend the Paris Accord — For the Sake of Our Health > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs takes readers inside the newsroom, revealing the journalists, ideas and editorial choices behind the stories shaping the global conversation. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: 10 Days that Define the Obama Presidency: The Paris Accords [Watch (HLS stream): 10 Days that Define the Obama Presidency: The Paris Accords](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/RNoECeNp.m3u8) (3:10)  _Published 2017-01-18. As President Obama's two terms in office come to a close, TIME is taking a look back at the most pivotal moments of his presidency._ by [Ashish Jha](https://time.com/author/ashish-jha/) and [Michelle Williams](https://time.com/author/michelle-williams/) Jul 7, 2017 2:44 PM UTC  French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Donald Trump confer at the start of the first working session of the G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Donald Trump confer at the start of the first working session of the G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017. John Macdougall—AFP/Getty Images by [Ashish Jha](https://time.com/author/ashish-jha/) and [Michelle Williams](https://time.com/author/michelle-williams/) Jul 7, 2017 2:44 PM UTC There are 6.5 billion reasons to be disappointed by [President Donald Trump](http://time.com/4846907/russia-vladimir-putin-president-donald-trump-warsaw-poland/)’s decision to withdraw the United States from the [Paris Climate Accord](http://time.com/4801344/paris-agreement-climate-deal-donald-trump/). Like the $6.5 billion in estimated U.S. [health care costs](http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/30/11/2167.full) from worsening [air pollution](http://time.com/4836660/air-pollution-health-death-epa/) that we are all paying for through higher insurance premiums and higher taxes. If you have not made the connection between the current Washington, D.C., battles over [health care](http://time.com/4845473/senate-health-care-bill-nursing-home/) on the one hand and the [Paris Agreement ](http://time.com/4802845/how-president-trump-decided-to-exit-the-paris-agreement/)on the other, you’re not alone. Though they are inextricably linked, the connection is often overlooked. The biggest impact of climate change will be on our health. Think of [climate change](http://time.com/4841312/climate-change-city-economic-impact/) as one big [pre-existing condition](http://time.com/money/4763609/pre-existing-conditions-ahca/) that we will all have. Most Americans understand that climate change poses a threat, but that threat appears decades off, with unclear consequences. Yet climate change is already affecting our health and the health of our children. Unless we heed these early warning signs, we will endure even greater health impacts. This is why this week’s [G20 meeting](http://time.com/4846047/trump-putin-meeting-g20-election-hacking/) of world leaders from major developed and developing economies, including the U.S., must mark a turning point where they agree not just to defend the Paris Agreement, but to implement it. We need to return to the business of tackling climate change and move towards solutions. Governments are together spending billions of dollars a year to promote the production of fossil fuels — oil, gas and [coal](http://time.com/4820537/coal-country-unemployment-history/) — that actively contribute to air pollution, premature deaths and climate damage that are already having major impacts on our health. G20 nations should work to phase out fossil fuel subsidies urgently. Additional revenue from the elimination of these subsidies will help governments, in rich and poor nations alike, fund programs that benefit health. In 2013 alone, [air pollution](http://time.com/4812547/google-maps-can-help-communities-address-air-pollution/) from burning fossil fuels cost the United States economy [billions of dollars](http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/781521473177013155/pdf/108141-REVISED-Cost-of-PollutionWebCORRECTEDfile.pdf) in labor output losses (because people couldn’t work productively or work at all) and even more in health care costs. The National Climate Assessment — an interagency initiative of the United States government — has [concluded](http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/our-changing-climate/changes-storms) that the intensity, frequency and duration of North Atlantic [hurricanes](http://time.com/4794103/hurricane-forecast-2017-el-nino/) have increased substantially since the early 1980s, a trend that will continue as the climate continues to warm. With more extreme storms and flooding — events like [Hurricane Katrina](http://time.com/4821556/grenfell-tower-fire-theresa-may-hurricane-katrina/) and Hurricane Sandy — our healthcare system is going to have to make expensive preparations. After Hurricane Sandy, several hospitals were closed for more than a month. Perhaps most ominously, Americans and people across the globe are also at growing risk of exposure to infectious disease outbreaks. Last year’s [Zika](http://time.com/4830117/zika-virus-prevention-pregnancy/) outbreak vividly demonstrated how previously overlooked diseases can spread quickly and unpredictably as the geographic range of disease vectors such as mosquitos and ticks changes. Recent outbreaks of other diseases such as Ebola remind us of the risk of a pandemic on the scale of the 1918 Spanish Influenza outbreak, whose centennial we will mark next year. That outbreak killed around [50 million people worldwide](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/1/05-0979%5Farticle), including [675,000 Americans](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/275/5307/1793.full). Although it is not possible to know with certainty when or what the next outbreak will be, we would be foolish to ignore climate change’s contribution to this deadly threat. It took U.S. leadership to forge the Paris Agreement, and ongoing U.S. leadership was critical to sustain that global agreement and make the world a healthier place not just for our kids and grandkids but even for us. We commend the leadership of governors and mayors and academic leaders across the nation who are making clear that while President Trump is abandoning the Paris Accord, America is not. G20 countries need to be the champions of climate action, to take the lead from the thousands of cities, regions, businesses and investors who have come forward with increased ambition and continue to show their support for the Paris Agreement. We can learn from civil society who came together recently to present their vision of “the world we want” to the G20, bringing together more than 200 NGOs from over 60 countries. We can also learn from the industry-led initiative on climate-risk disclosure — which has been well-received by investors, asset managers and the like all over the world — encouraging companies to become transparent about climate change risk on their bottom line. When the science is strong that climate change will have devastating effects on our health, collective action and ambitious leadership are the only ways forward. We stand with them, believing it has never been more urgent to ensure that Americans understand and prepare for the health risks we all face from climate change. Prevention is the best medicine, and acting now to mitigate these risks by remaining in the Paris Agreement is both morally imperative and fiscally sound. Climate change is one pre-existing condition we know how to cure. ## Transcript Two weeks ago in Paris. I said before the world that we needed a strong, global agreement to accomplish this goal. An enduring agreement that reduces global carbon pollution and sets the world on a course to a low carbon future. A few hours ago, we succeeded. You have the Paris Climate Accords where you know, through rather complex and stepped framework, you had the world's leading powers all agreeing that they would take steps to try and bring down the production of carbon. Nobody really expected China to Wake up one morning, and [ UNKNOWN ] cap its own emissions. And over the course of several years of [ INAUDIBLE ] negotiation, the Whitehouse and the Chinese government developed a real partnership, areas of common ground. Yes, there are gonna be special [ UNKNOWN ] from developing countries, but the developed world will move first. Partly that was driven by how he said Issues of pollution and the domestic issue of the climate in China but also a desire within the United States but by the present to turn climate into a legacy issue in an area, that he thinks that in 20- 30 years he'll be remembered as a leader on. And my fellow leaders accepting this challenge will not reward us with Moments of victory that are clear or quick. Our progress will be measured differently in the suffering that is averted, and a planet that's preserved. Whereas President Bush had been pretty lateral in the way he approached things, President Obama Envisioned a far more multilateral, internationally agreed upon framework. And he sought to heal a lot of the animosity that existed in the world. He sought Quietly in his first term and then more aggressively in the second term to remake the US relationship with Cuba. And then the other big diplomatic effort he undertook, also in his second term, was to try and solve, at least for a time, the spread of nuclear weapons around the world. And this involved a multi year process of first Increasing sanctions, and really harming the economy of Iran, and then promising at the end that those sanctions could be released if the country agreed to essentially abandon for a time its nuclear research program, and allow inspectors to ensure that that was actually happening. But it really reset in a very dramatic way. The American relationship with Iran, which had been basically limited to animosity since the 1970s. I mean, the President's legacy internationally will certainly be defined by his desire to work with international partners, international agencies. On the negative side you end of things like Syria. Sort of the quagmire there where the desire to sort of not go it alone and foreign allies with different interests. Different self interests, different moral views on the issue that led to the US not really doing much of anything. That might be our most significant foreign policy failure But it comes from the same place as some of his greatest foreign policy achievements, and that's sort of the grand irony of the Obama foreign policy. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4848133/g20-paris-climate-accord-health/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4848133/g20-paris-climate-accord-health/"},"headline":"The G20 Must Defend the Paris Accord — For the Sake of Our Health","datePublished":"2017-07-07T14:44:14.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:44:45.211Z","description":"'Think of climate change as one big pre-existing condition'","url":"https://time.com/4848133/g20-paris-climate-accord-health/","keywords":["Public Health","Environment","climate change"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdced4c69f6c976cc/6988d4d6096a94d81069eaf5/g20-summit-paris-climate-agreement-2017-accord-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ashish Jha","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ashish-jha/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Michelle Williams","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/michelle-williams/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdced4c69f6c976cc/6988d4d6096a94d81069eaf5/g20-summit-paris-climate-agreement-2017-accord-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TOPSHOT-GERMANY-G20-SUMMIT","caption":"TOPSHOT-GERMANY-G20-SUMMIT","creditText":"John Macdougall—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/public-health/","name":"Public Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4848133/g20-paris-climate-accord-health/","name":"The G20 Must Defend the Paris Accord — For the Sake of Our Health"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"10 Days that Define the Obama Presidency: The Paris Accords","description":"As President Obama's two terms in office come to a close, TIME is taking a look back at the most pivotal moments of his presidency.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/RNoECeNp/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-01-18T17:06:34.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/RNoECeNp.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4848133/g20-paris-climate-accord-health/","duration":"PT3M10S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4848133/g20-paris-climate-accord-health/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```