Ref. Ares(2020)2127469 - 20/04/2020
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
DIRECTORATE-GENERAL
CLIMATE ACTION
Legal Affairs, Inter-Institutional Relations & Communication
Brussels
By registered letter with acknowledgment
of receipt
Neil Roberts
Bridge House,
69 London Rd,
London TW1 3SP
United Kingdom
Advance copy by email: ask+request-7746-
xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject:
Your application for access to documents – GestDem 2020/1424
Dear Mr Roberts,
We refer to your e-mail dated 9 March 2020 in which you make a request for access to
documents, registered on 10 March 2020 under the above-mentioned reference number.
You have made the same request for access to documents to the Directorate-General for
Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) which was registered under reference Gestdem
2020/1414 and to the Directorate-General for Environment (DG ENV). Please note that
this letter replies to these three different requests.
In addition, I note that you have made the same request to the Directorate-General for
Research and Innovation (DG RTD), which was registered under reference Gestdem
2020/1630. You will receive soon a reply from DG RTD as regards their request.
In your emails you requested access to “
any assessments made by or for the commission
in the last 5 years of the increased risk of human disease spread caused by climate
change or the effects of climate change, and any work by or for the commission on
mitigating those risks”.
Having consulted the relevant services, we have identified the following documents
under the scope of the request:
Commission européenne/Europese Commissie, 1049 Bruxelles/Brussel, BELGIQUE/BELGIË - Tel. +32 22991111
Office: BU24 01/078 - Tel. direct line +32 229-50164
Author
Reference/name
1
European Commission Climate change and health: A discussion of the latest
international
and
European
reports
and
the
implications for Europe
2
European Commission Adaptation to climate change-related health effects in
Europe – September 2019 report
3
European Commission Assessment of global climate change impacts on
human health - Ares(2016)5622193
4
European Environment Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe
Agency
2016 – chapter 5.2.
5
European Commission Staff Working Document on ‘Adaptation to climate
change impacts on human, animal and plant health’
6
European Environment More action needed to protect Europe’s most
Agency
vulnerable citizens from air pollution, noise and
extreme temperatures
7
European Commission Human Health Impacts of Climate Change in Europe
8
European Commission Scoping paper: Adaptation to climate change-related
health effects in Europe - – October 2019 report
Please find the documents and links enclosed with this letter. However, I regret to inform
you that I cannot give you access to some parts of the documents 1 and 2. A complete
disclosure of these documents is prevented by the exception concerning the protection of
privacy and the integrity of the individual outlined in Article 4(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No
1049/2001. These documents contain personal data such as: names and contact information
of Commission staff members not pertaining to the senior management; names and contact
details of other natural persons; and other information relating to an identified or identifiable
natural person.
Article 9(1)(b) of the Data Protection Regulation does not allow the transmission of these
personal data, except if you prove that it is necessary to have the data transmitted to you for
a specific purpose in the public interest and where there is no reason to assume that the
legitimate interests of the data subject might be prejudiced. In your request, you do not
express any particular interest to have access to these personal data nor do you put forward
any arguments to establish the necessity to have the data transmitted for a specific purpose
in the public interest.
Consequently, I conclude that, pursuant to Article 4(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No
1049/2001, access cannot be granted to the personal data contained in the requested
documents, as the need to obtain access thereto for a purpose in the public interest has not
been substantiated and there is no reason to think that the legitimate interests of the
individuals concerned would not be prejudiced by disclosure of the personal data concerned.
2
As regards document 3, please note that the document has been prepared for the
European Commission. However, the scientific results and views are those only of the
authors, and the Commission is not liable for any use of the information or its veracity
including the validation of its scientific data.
Therefore, the document does not reflect the
position of the Commission and cannot be quoted as such.
Documents 4-8 are publically available. Please see enclosed in the table below the links
to these documents:
Link to the document
4 https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/climate-change-impacts-and-vulnerability-
2016
5 https://ec.europa.eu/clima/sites/clima/files/adaptation/what/docs/swd_2013_136_en.
pdf
6 https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/unequal-exposure-and-unequal-impacts/
7 https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC86970/lfna26494enn.pd
f
8 https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/research_and_innovation/groups/sam/hlg_sa
m_102019_scoping_paper_cch.pdf
Available information
In addition to the documents identified, I would like to provide you with some further
relevant information. The Commission prepared or supported different reports and
publications related to the relation between health and climate change. See below a
summary of this information:
The European Commission’s group of
Chief Scientific Advisors, through the Scientific
Advice Mechanism (SAM), is currently developing a
Report on Adaptation to climate
change-related health effects, expected to be published around June 2020.
Supported by a Commission grant, the WHO Regional Office for Europe and the
European Commission started in 2017 a joint 18-month project to analyse developments
in health policies to address adaptation to climate change in European Union countries
and to compile a selection of good practice case studies. More details on this project and
the resulting final report
‘Public health and climate change adaptation policies in the
European Union (2018)’ are available on the
WHO web site.
The
Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) has developed several demonstrators
such as the
European Health Service, which provides tailor-made climate information
e.g.
on vector-borne diseases. C3S is implemented by the European Centre for Medium-
Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) on behalf of the European Commission.
For many years,
EU research and innovation programmes have been funding research
projects on climate change and health, including on the risk of spread of infectious
diseases. For instance, in 2018 the Commission published
a call for project proposals on
3
‘Mining Big Data for Early Detection of Infectious Disease Threats Driven by Climate
Change and other Factors’
Moreover, the
Climate-ADAPT platform, a partnership between the European
Commission and the European Environment Agency (EEA), includes several sections
and database items related to projected novel health risks from infectious diseases. See
the link below for more information:
https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/eu-adaptation-policy/sector-policies/health
In addition, the EEA has developed the Extreme temperatures and a health indicator
(https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/metadata/indicators/extreme-temperatures-and-
health) and studied the relation between extreme temperatures and health
(https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/heat-and-health-2/assessment).
Finally, the Commission works in close cooperation with the
European Centre for
Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), an independent EU agency which is carrying
out important work in the area. Its
European Environment and Epidemiology (E3)
Network investigates climate change and related threats to public health. ECDC
researchers also have published a large number of reports, book chapters, and scientific
papers addressing climate change and infectious diseases in Europe. ECDC reports to a
Management Board whose members are nominated by the Member States, the European
Parliament and the European Commission.
Means of redress
In case you would disagree with this position, you are entitled, in accordance with Article
7(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, to submit a confirmatory application requesting the
Commission to review this position.
Such a confirmatory application should be addressed within 15 working days upon receipt
of this letter to the Secretariat-General of the Commission at the following address:
European Commission
Secretariat-General
Unit C.1. ‘Transparency, Document Management and Access to Documents’
BERL 7/076
B-1049 Brussels, or by email to:
xxxxxxxxxx@xx.xxxxxx.xx
Yours sincerely,
Luca DE CARLI
Head of Unit
4
Electronically signed on 15/04/2020 09:16 (UTC+02) in accordance with article 4.2 (Validity of electronic documents) of Commission Decision 2004/563