By Jeni Miller, Stella Hartinger, Mark Watts, Pamela Templer, December 16, 2025 on Dialogue Earth.
As the world heats up, human health needs to be much more firmly on the climate negotiations agenda, say four expertsClimate change and human health are not separate issues. The consequences of humanity’s emissions will impact the health of millions of people, regardless of future emission cuts. The UN’s flagship annual climate summit took place in Brazil last month. COP30 was the latest chance for nations to make substantial progress on curbing emissions, mitigating the impacts of rising temperatures and financing humanity’s adaptation to a hotter future. In the end, the huge gathering in Belém agreed upon a new climate finance goal but avoided talking about fossil fuels. Here, we ask three experts whether COP30 achieved enough for human health.
‘Negotiations must focus on heat – the deadliest component of the climate crisis’
Jeni Miller is executive director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, a network of health-sector professionals pushing for action on climate policy
The health impacts of heatwaves and drought are significant and growing. In 2023, they pushed over 100 million more people into food insecurity compared to 1981-2010. While in 2024, over 600 billion potential labour hours were lost due to heat, with follow-on impacts for family health and wellbeing.
Such stark realities should spur governments to support the most impacted developing countries in adapting and preparing to make their communities more resilient, as well as to tackle the root causes and drivers of climate change. While COP30 featured a number of discussions on heat health, there was little indication of the issue penetrating policy negotiations, where it could have motivated more ambitious climate action.
The Belém Health Action Plan was launched during the summit. Speaking at the launch event, the Pan American Health Organization head Jarbas Barbosa said: “600 million people around the world are now vulnerable to heat-related illnesses.” Several events and sessions at COP30’s Health Pavilion focussed on the relationship between heat and health. There was also a notable increase in health discussions in events at other, non-health pavilions and venues. Sessions addressed heat and occupational health; the role cities can play in protecting populations from heat; governance; cross-sectoral approaches to building heat resilience; and a COP presidency event to launch an initiative on cooling in response to extreme heat.
But even while discussion of heat and its health impacts received more attention than ever among this COP’s panel sessions and presidency events, there were few mentions within the negotiations. COP negotiations can be quite technical, focussing on the mechanisms required to collectively address the global challenge of the climate crisis. But without regularly connecting them to the ways in which heat – the deadliest component of the climate crisis – impacts real people’s lives, these talks will fail to address the critical urgency of advancing ambitious climate action.
Read article: Dialogue Earth: Roundtable: Did COP30 do enough for health?
