As a matter of some urgency, our loosely organized but highly engaged and growing coalition of climate and health advocates needs to know how we answer the questions: What's next? What exactly is it that we want to achieve?
Author: Kelly Willis, Global Lead, Forecasting Healthy Futures Consortium
By now, we’ve all had a chance to absorb the outcomes of COP29 in Azerbaijan and reflect on the gains we’ve made in moving health closer to the center of climate discourse. One of the most significant gains, of course, being the establishment of the Baku COP Presidencies Continuity Coalition for Climate and Health.
As Stefan Anderson wrote for Health Policy Watch, “The coalition’s key achievement… is significant: after decades of fighting, health advocates and WHO officials will no longer have to relitigate the importance of health as a central concern in climate talks.”
Where will we now direct the time and energy we’ve been spending over “decades of fighting”, just trying to get health on the UNFCCC map?
The question reminds me of one Minister of Health Chiponda of Malawi asked a room full of delegates at this year’s United Nations General Assembly in New York, in a meeting convened by the COP28 Presidency. “What next after ‘Health Day’?” she asked, referring to last year’s milestone December 3 event in Dubai. “Is it going to be Health Week? Health Month? What exactly is it that we want to achieve?”
As a matter of some urgency, our loosely organized but highly engaged and growing coalition of climate and health advocates needs to know how we answer that question.
Of course, there is no shortage of worthy climate policy goals to pursue in the interest of global health. We’ll continue to push for integrating health in NDCs and ensuring health indices in the global goal on adaptation. We’ll work to see that health-determinant sectors also adapt and become more resilient. We’ll pursue health co-benefits by promoting mitigation in energy, transport, agriculture, food, and other sectors. We should certainly collaborate to identify further action opportunities in all of these areas.
But maybe a definitive starting point would be to establish a global goal for climate finance to support health adaptation initiatives in developing countries.
For all the disappointment around the grossly inadequate $300B target for climate financing negotiated in Baku last month, we shouldn’t lose sight of the opportunity it affords the sectors that most convincingly make a compelling investment case. I can think of few sectors where those funds could have as much impact as in public health.
How much of that $300B should be used to protect lives from the impact of climate change by addressing worsening climate-sensitive disease? How much of it should be used to build resilient health systems and protect against future impact? To fund early warning and response systems? To improve the underlying health of our most vulnerable populations?
Forecasting Healthy Futures invites more urgent dialogue around refreshed goals for the climate and health movement. It’s one of the things we hope to do in earnest at our next Global Summit, scheduled for April 8 -10 in Rio de Janeiro.
Please reach out to see how you and your organization can be involved in our planning!
Register here to participate in person or virtually at our 2025 Forecasting Healthy Futures Global Summit.
