THE special report on health and climate changepublished by the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) and the Brazilian government, warn that one in 12 hospitals could face climate-related closures. It calls for urgent action to protect health systems in a rapidly warming world.
This follows Thursday’s launch of the Belém Health Action Plana flagship initiative of COP30 placing health at the center of climate policy.
What the WHO says
“The climate crisis is a health crisis – not in the distant future, but here and now,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“This special report provides evidence on the impact of climate change on people and health systems, as well as concrete examples of what countries can do – and are doing – to protect health and strengthen health systems. »
Why it matters
Global temperatures are already above 1.5°C. The report finds that 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in areas highly vulnerable to climate impacts, while hospitals face a 41 percent higher risk of damage from extreme weather compared to 1990.
Without rapid decarbonization, the number of healthcare facilities at risk could double by mid-century. The health sector itself contributes around 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, underscoring the need for a rapid transition to low-carbon and climate-resilient systems.
Main gaps in health adaptation
The report highlights serious gaps in health adaptation planning:
- Only 54 percent national health adaptation plans assess the risks for health establishments.
- Less than 30 percent take into account income disparities.
- Only 20 percent take gender into account.
- Less than 1 percent include people with disabilities.
Progress has been made – the number of countries with multi-hazard early warning systems doubled between 2015 and 2023 – but coverage remains uneven, particularly in least developed countries and small island states.
What is done
To add momentum, a coalition of more than 35 philanthropic organizations today pledged $300 million to accelerate solutions at the intersection of climate and health.
The Climate and Health Funders Coalition – which includes Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Gates Foundation, the IKEA Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and Wellcome – will support innovations, policies and research on extreme heat, air pollution and climate-sensitive diseases, and strengthen health systems and data integration. Discover more here.
The coalition’s inaugural fundraising effort supports the Belém Health Action Plan and aims to deliver “no regrets” interventions that save lives now. With the past decade being the hottest on record and temperatures expected to remain near historic highs, experts warn that failure to act could have catastrophic consequences for human health.
“Adaptation is urgent”: COP30 health envoy calls for action
UN News spoke with Ethel Maciel, special envoy for health at COP30 and one of the architects of the Belém Health Action Plan. She emphasized that climate change is no longer a distant threat: it is now reshaping health systems.
“So how do we prepare our health units, our hospitals, our structures for these extreme events that will occur more and more frequently? And how can we ensure the training and capacity building of health professionals so that they can deal with these extreme events that will be caused by what we are already experiencing in these climate changes,” she said.
“An example here in Brazil is last year’s flood in Rio Grande do Sul, [which triggered] the largest dengue epidemic in history, caused by these climate changes. So this is not something we need to think about in the future; It’s happening now. It is therefore urgent to think about how to adapt our system.
Ms. Maciel described three pillars of the plan:
- Monitoring integrate climate and health data, thereby forecasting heat-related health demand and better reporting climate-related cases.
- Resilient systems and training so that healthcare professionals can identify and treat impacts such as dehydration or cardiac stress.
- Research and innovation to be developed heat-resistant medicines and vaccines, reduce pollution in healthcare supply chains and expand the use of renewable energy.
She warned that implementation is essential in the Amazon, where deforestation could release unknown pathogens. “We have…pathogens that we don’t even fully know about yet [understand]she said, urging leaders to ensure that the plan “doesn’t just become another piece of paper and another really nice statement, but that doesn’t happen in practice.”
UN NewsEastreport from Belémgiving you front row coverage of everything happening at COP30.
Originally published at Almouwatin.com
