Europe Chapter Reports

Past Work Reports

Key Points of Periodic Report (Aug - Nov 2024)

Currently, the Chapter consists of 7 elected members and 27 active associate members who are based throughout Europe. We have monthly calls including elected and associated members to organize our work, to which all ISEE members are invited to participate.

The Chapter is led by co-chairs Elaine Fuertes and Rajini Nagrani

Overview of recent chapter activities:

ISEE Europe is looking back at a very successful ISEE conference in Chile. Together with the Policy Committee, we organized two events at this year’s conference

A symposium entitled “Stories of Policy Success: Real Examples of Inspiring Science-based Air Quality and Climate Action Around the World.
A preconference workshop entitled “Climate crisis and health – from research to policy. A primer with the focus on United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) climate negotiations”.

We also held our annual lunch meeting for all Chapter members from Europe and beyond to talk about the Chapter’s current and future activities. Several suggestions were made, including interest in doing work related to pesticides, noise, health economics, chemicals, science communication, wildfires and reducing disparities.

The conference abstracts from the ISEE Europe Young Conference held in Rennes in June, 2024, were recently published in Environmental Epidemiology, and a paper linked to this event, entitled ‘Air pollution inequalities in Europe: addressing the gaps in exposure and health burden between East and West’ is forthcoming.

In collaboration with the ERS, the Europe Chapter responded to the targeted consultation conducted as part of the evaluation of the National Emission Reduction Commitments Directive (NEC-D). This Directive sets national emission reduction commitments for the EU Member States' anthropogenic emissions of several pollutants and is currently being evaluated by the European Commission. ISEE Europe members contributed substantially to the revisions of the EU Air Quality Directive over the last few years with several important activities and have learned a lot in the process! We are keen to put these skills into action in relation to the NEC-D.

Several ISEE Europe members are actively involved in many activities linked to climate and health, including regular participation and contribution to meetings of GCHA, WHO, NDC 3.0 partnership, and Climate change, health and Fossil Fuels. For example, Ana Vicedo-Cabrera and Kurt Straif (both elected members) are engaged with activities related to the next IPCC assessment report, Kurt Straif organized ISEE Observer badges for virtual participation in COP29, and Rajini Nagrani co-organized a workshop in Germany on planetary health.

Planned activities and goals for the coming year:

In addition to keeping a strong focus on air pollution, climate change, and health, work to raise the profile of several other areas of environmental risk is ongoing. For example, Konstantinos Makris has taken the lead in addressing challenges related to pesticide research and is exploring how best ISEE Europe can contribute. This work will be done in collaboration with the Policy Committee and others interested in this topic given the global effects of pesticides.

We will also continue to work with the Policy committee and other research societies (e.g. ERS) to support and influence policy makers in relation to future relevant aspects, such as the ‘National Emission reduction Commitments Directive’ and post-COP29 activities (and planning for COP30).