After more than a decade of major achievements, the AIDS response is at a crucial juncture, both in terms of its immediate trajectory and its sustainability, as well as its place in the new global health and development agendas. In May, 2013, the UNAIDS–Lancet Commission—a diverse group of experts in HIV, health, and development, young people, people living with HIV and affected communities, activists, and political leaders—was established to investigate how the AIDS response could evolve in a new era of sustainable development.

According to this research published in the journal The Lancet, climate change poses a potentially “catastrophic risk” to public health due to increased risk of the spread of disease, food insecurity and air pollution among many other things.