HEAL was honoured to host renowned epidemiologist Dr. Shanna Swan in Brussels in May 2025. She met with different stakeholders to discuss impact of pollution to reproductive health. To specifically assess sperm decline, Dr. Swan has examined hundreds of scientific studies and conducted her own, which all indicate that sperm count is declining globally. This is the case even when controlling for all variables such as genetic and lifestyle factors.
Today, the European Parliament has adopted its position on the 17.5 billion EUR Just Transition Fund.
HEAL, together with 64 other organisations, has been advocating to exclude fossil gas from receiving any money from the fund, linking money from the fund with a pre-2030 exit from coal energy as well as the requirement to commit to the EU’s net zero climate target.
Vlatka Matkovic, HEAL’s senior health and energy officer, comments:
“After the REGI-Committee’s failure to exclude fossil gas from Just Transition Fund text, the European Parliament plenary had the opportunity, the obligation to rectify the position.
But in sharp contrast to its declaration of a climate emergency in 2019 and the zero pollution ambition of the EU Green Deal, today’s vote on the Just Transition Fund is half-hearted and a disservice to the millions of Europeans waiting for the transformation of our societies and economies, for a real kicking out of fossils and stopping the climate emergency. Allowing continued fossil gas investments in a so-called Just Transition and not applying coal phase out date conditions leaves the door open to continued, health-harming pollution.”
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