CHI Launches Acclimate Colorado Health and Climate Policy Agenda

The Colorado Health Institute is introducing Colorado’s Health and Climate Policy Agenda to drive policy changes that will help Colorado communities become more resilient in the face of climate change, and to improve health equity for the people most profoundly — and unfairly — affected by climate change.

Colorado’s Health and Climate Policy Agenda is the first major effort in the state to identify and adopt the necessary policies to curb health risk to all Coloradans, with an emphasis on those most exposed to climate change. CHI created Colorado’s Health and Climate Policy Agenda in collaboration with the Acclimate Action Team, a diverse and cross-disciplinary group that provided the expertise and on-the-ground knowledge needed to make this policy agenda useful for Colorado communities.

Colorado’s Health and Climate Policy Agenda identifies five key categories for developing and advancing adaptation solutions:

  1. Grow Colorado’s climate adaptation planning and response capacity. 
  2. Improve and invest in infrastructure to support health.
  3. Enhance workforce capacity for climate and health adaptation and response.
  4. Improve data and research to support informed and equitable planning and response efforts.
  5. Develop and share communications tools to educate Coloradans.

CHI identified 26 goals and 34 strategies needed to advance this work, giving every individual, organization, and community an opportunity to get involved in ways that are meaningful to them.

“CHI created a policy agenda because Colorado needs a tangible, achievable, measurable, and meaningful set of policy strategies that will improve the health and well-being of Coloradans and protect them from climate impacts,” said Karam Ahmad, Director at CHI. “And, because we want everyone working in the health, environment, community organizing, and policy space in Colorado to see themselves in this work. People will be able to use this policy agenda to identify actions and strategies that they can support or champion over the next few years.”

CHI launched the policy agenda on Thursday, February 23, as part of its Eggheads webinar series. The webinar was recorded and will be available on CHI’s Eggheads page on Friday, February 24.