Belém, 5 November 2025:- Responding to the recent commentary by Bill Gates and the reactions that followed, Dr Jeni Miller, Executive Director of of the Global Climate and Health Alliance said:
“There cannot be sustainable human development without tackling the multiple aspects of the climate crisis at the same time – including both a rapid, just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels, and massively scaled up finance for adaptation. Tackling the causes of climate change cannot wait, nor will technology alone fix the problem.”
“Let’s be clear – we cannot treat urgent emissions reduction as optional or secondary to investing in health and development – both are essential to protecting human health. Thanks to decades of delay on reducing emissions, the burdens of climate impacts on developing countries – and indeed on all countries – are growing by the day. Adaptation is critical, but unchecked emissions will quickly overwhelm efforts to adapt, converting mitigation shortfalls into recurring humanitarian crises.”
“As diplomats, Indigenous and civil society groups, and, problematically, industry lobbyists gather at COP30, we must refuse to be sidetracked by any false dichotomy that pits poverty reduction and climate action against each other. Together we must resist the playbook of the fossil-fuel industry, which seeks to cast doubt, promote delay and portray their harmful products as essential to human flourishing, and which has sought to exploit the need to address poverty as part of that manipulation. The truth is, vulnerability and emissions together mean catastrophe.”
“Hurricane Melissa tore through the Caribbean in late October, making landfall in Jamaica as a record-breaking storm with sustained winds of up to 300 kmph/185 mph. It left hundreds of thousands without power, caused massive flooding and landslides, and resulted in dozens of fatalities. Studies now show that Hurricane Melissa was made four times more likely by human-induced warming of the oceans. In the hardest-hit regions, entire communities are now coping with destroyed homes, compromised health systems, disrupted food supply and loss of livelihoods: the very foundations of human development.”
“This hurricane occurred at current levels of global warming. Emissions are still climbing, fossil fuel production is still expanding, and fossil fuels are still being subsidized by taxpayers.”
“Health professionals, health leaders, and health workers around the world are on the front lines of the climate crisis, striving to respond to what is now a rapidly accelerating threat. We cannot heal people when the systems meant to protect them are collapsing around us. At COP30, governments must judge success not by words or targets, but by the health and survival of their people. Investment in resilient health systems, clean energy, and the essentials of life – food, water, shelter and dignity, must go hand in hand with bold mitigation and rapid cuts in emissions. This is not a choice between development and climate action. We can do both, we must do both, because lives depend on it.”
ENDS
Contact:
Dave Walsh, Communications Advisor, Global Climate and Health Alliance, [email protected], +34 691 826 764 (Available from 0630 CET)
About GCHA
The Global Climate and Health Alliance is a consortium of more than 200 health professional and health civil society organisations and networks from around the world addressing climate change. We are united by a shared vision of an equitable, sustainable future, in which the health impacts of climate change are minimised, and the health co-benefits of climate change mitigation are maximised.
Find out more: https://climateandhealthalliance.org/who-we-are/about/
