Perry World House and Penn Climate Host Climate Leadership and Health Conference
On September 17-18, 2026, Perry World House in collaboration with Penn Climate convened a conference on Climate Leadership and Health. The convening examined the intersection of global climate diplomacy and public health, with a focus on the policy frameworks needed to address the accelerating reality of climate-related illness. The discussion brought together former ministers, United Nations officials, physicians, architects, and student organizers to explore how to translate high-level diplomacy into local, implementable policy action.
The colloquium opened Thursday evening with a Global Climate Youth Leadership Roundtable, where former Maldivian climate leaders H.E. Aminath Shauna and H.E. Khadeeja Naseem joined Susan Biniaz, former Principal Deputy Special Envoy for Climate at the U.S. Department of State, to discuss how youth leadership can reshape local governance to build climate-resilient and health-empowered communities. The evening continued with the Carnot Lecture, delivered by former Secretary of State John Forbes Kerry at the Penn Museum.
Friday’s session opened with welcome and framing remarks, respectively, by Professor Sanya Carley, Vice Provost for Climate and Mark Alan Hughes Faculty Director of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, and Professor Michael Weisberg, Deputy Director of Perry World House and Bess W. Heyman President’s Distinguished Professor of Philosophy.
There were followed by a keynote address by H.E. Aminath Shauna, moderated by science journalist Faye Flam, on bridging global diplomacy and planetary health. Participants then turned to two public panel discussions. The first, on One Health, examined how to operationalize integrated surveillance across human, animal, and environmental health to detect and mitigate climate-amplified pathogen threats, with panelists including Mr. Greg Puley of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and faculty from Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and School of Veterinary Medicine, moderated by Dean Andrew Hoffman of Penn Vet. The second panel, on the Built Environment, considered how sustainable, climate-resilient infrastructure and urban design can lower emissions while protecting physiological and mental well-being, moderated by H.E. Mauricio Rodas, former Mayor of Quito and Penn Practice Professor.
Across the day’s conversations, participants considered how macro-level science diplomacy can be paired with localized innovation, such as grid-independent cooling shelters and city-specific heat action plans, to protect the frontline communities most exposed to cascading climate-health shocks. Small island states and low-lying territories, where medical infrastructure sits in close proximity to vulnerable shorelines, featured prominently in these discussions, as did the growing spread of vector-borne diseases such as dengue and chikungunya.
The conference closed with reflections on next steps and the debut of ThermoTerra, a new outdoor cooling installation outside the Gordon Gallery at Weitzman Hall. Made with diatomaceous-earth-rich cement and embedded with solar-chilled water tubes, the benches were presented by Associate Professor of Architecture Dorit Aviv, who led the project team, with time afterward for attendees to experience the installation firsthand.