From November 11 to 22, global leaders and climate experts have come together at the Conference of Parties (COP) 29, billed as the ‘finance COP’ to set the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). This new global climate finance target aims to support developing countries’ climate actions after 2025.
Finance is a crucial driver of climate action, and in recent years, the average annual flow of climate finance has doubled, going up to $1.3 trillion in 2021 and 2022 from $53 billion in 2019 and 2020. While developed countries exceeded the expectation of mobilising $100 billion annually by 2020, giving a sense of accomplishment, several reports suggest that the resources have been unevenly distributed across geographies, affecting sectors interspersed with climate — especially health.
The climate crisis is expected to put tremendous pressure on health systems across the world, with over 2,50,000 additional deaths per year predicted between 2030 and 2050. Closer home, climate-induced illness will increasingly reduce productivity and pose life-threatening risks like heat strokes, especially affecting children and the elderly. A World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report has revealed that between 2003 and 2021, India witnessed 138,377 fatalities, having the second-highest climate mortalities in Asia.
Thus, the World Health Organization (WHO) calls the climate crisis the single biggest health threat facing humanity.
Following this rising concern, governments across the world have recognised the interconnected pathways between climate and health, leading to consensus on bolstering intersectoral collaboration and investing in greener, more resilient health systems, as recognised in the COP28, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Declaration on Climate and Health. During the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2023, multilateral development banks and funders pledged $1 billion to address the climate-health crisis and agreed on forming guiding principles for financing climate and health solutions.
However, although countries have increasingly prioritised climate in relation to health, with several countries developing a national health and climate change strategy, a 2018 WHO report suggests that only about 38% of them roughly have the necessary resources to implement their strategies following irregular distribution of climate finance. Low-and middle-income nations are most affected by the extremely unequal distribution of the climate health burden, and ironically, these nations only contribute 4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
It is widely believed that the health sector has been unable to leverage opportunities to mobilise climate funding to improve health outcomes. That is mainly because climate finance is not adequately mobilised locally due to siloed finance, poor policies, and programmes. For instance, a report by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) estimates that less than 10% ($ 1.5 billion) of international climate funds ($ 17.4 billion) was approved for mobilisation at the local community levels between 2003 and 2016.
Thus, there is an urgent need to articulate the case for investing in the health-climate nexus, as there is a limited strategic focus and awareness of direct health sector investments through climate financing. This is largely due to a lack of awareness of health needs and co-benefits within climate action and finance across sectors and limited attention to the climate crisis within the health sector. Responding to the existing health impacts of the climate crisis and minimising future health threats demands urgent attention from the global community to advance rapid and large-scale action across health and other sectors. Health stakeholders need to participate in climate finance and policy processes, and governments need to be made aware of the opportunities to request funding for health during ongoing climate dialogues such as COP(s).
While the doubling of funds for climate action has given hope, it has also been estimated that by 2030, the world will lose $ 2-4 billion in direct damage costs from the climate crisis to health. To keep up with the continuous need to invest in the climate-health nexus, blended finance can be a resourceful way to drive more public, private, and philanthropic investments and sensitise funders about the effects of climate on health. This impact-driven financial model has been gaining momentum in India, with over $ 4 billion in investments done in the past decade, accounting for 3% of global investments in health, according to a recent Bridgespan‘24 study. In the social sector space alone, nearly $ 160 billion has been mobilised, with over half dedicated to climate-health initiatives, indicating an upward surge in this space globally.
Further, governments need to push for the inclusion of health in climate policy documents at the national and international levels while fostering access to information on available climate funds for health workers to leverage them better and vice versa.
With every COP, there is also a new agenda, more money, and newer plans, including spillovers from the previous one, which demand effective monitoring and evaluation of health adaptation projects to assess impact, identify gaps, measure health vulnerabilities to the climate crisis, and determine the cost-effectiveness of interventions.
Let’s not forget that the climate crisis is not only a problem for future generations — it’s already happening. With nearly 70% of the population projected to live in cities by 2050, contributing 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions, we are on the precipice of a vulnerable future ruled by an intrinsic link between climate and health. And to address this complex climate crisis equitably, we must rethink how to bring global actors together to invest and safeguard our most valuable asset: People and their health for a developing economy.
This article is authored by Ashwajit Singh, founder and managing director, IPE Global.
