Webinar, Panel
Emerging Zoonotic Diseases and Planetary Health: Stopping the Next Pandemic Before It Starts
- The global economy faces anticipated costs totaling trillions of dollars, driven by pandemic risks, climate change, and unsustainable food systems that may push Earth beyond planetary boundaries.
- A significant portion of future outbreaks, estimated at three out of four diseases with epidemic potential, is predicted to jump from animals to humans, particularly in global hotspot areas where land use, climate change, and travel converge.
- Without a systemic shift to a "One Health" mindset, prevention remains difficult due to the challenge of selling low-probability, high-consequence events to governments and continued pressure on wildlife from population growth and wealth.
- Food system risks are substantial, with over 11 million annual deaths attributed to poor diets and obesity increasing COVID-19 mortality by as much as 50%, potentially leading to future pandemics more lethal than the current one if systems remain untransformed.
- Legislative and policy initiatives include the "Stop Future Pandemics" bill, expected to become official U.S. policy and provide funding for demand reduction, law enforcement, pathogen monitoring, and alternative livelihoods, with bipartisan legislation anticipated in the U.S. Senate after the recess.
- Strategic plans involve repurposing approximately $700 billion in agricultural subsidies for regenerative production, launching new nutritional guidelines and food labeling, and establishing a food systems economics commission to shift finance flows.
- The "Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return" initiative is scheduled to launch in September or early October, expecting a coalition of institutional investors managing over $23 trillion in assets to treat zoonotic disease as an ESG risk while advocating for corporate responsibility over immediate divestment.
- Specific interventions to halt wildlife trade include targeting markets in Lagos, Nigeria, involving pangolins and monkeys, supporting the Chinese government's transition of commercial wildlife farmers, and mobilizing a coalition of over 377 organizations and 83,000 signatories.
- Community engagement models are being scaled in places like Chiang Mai, Thailand, and Cambodia, utilizing free national hotlines, shared community dashboards across health and agriculture ministries, and digital tools to empower local populations in identifying outbreaks and reporting food safety issues.
- Financial mechanisms aim to de-risk opportunities for government and follow-on investors, with high-income countries expected to finance low and middle-income countries' protection of ecosystem hotspots, while philanthropic dollars facilitate longer-term investments.
- Broader goals include a global treaty to stop expanding agriculture into natural ecosystems, a potential food system framework convention at next year's summit, and the development of public corporate benchmarks by the World Benchmarking Alliance to assess performance against SDGs.