Coincident with the expected finalization of the global plastics treaty, The Lancet is launching an independent, health-focused global monitoring system on plastics: The Lancet Countdown on Health and Plastics. This new Countdown is inspired by the model and impact of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change. Through its publications, the Health and Climate Change Countdown has moved consideration of climate change’s health impacts to the mainstream of the climate conversation, and played a key role in the decision to incorporate an explicit focus on human health into the annual climate negotiations, beginning with COP 28.

Hei-Planet Director Prof. Dr. Joacim Rocklöv will be Co-Chair of the new countdown along with his colleague Prof Philip Landrigan, MD, a paediatrician and epidemiologist, Director of the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College.