Opinion: How to tackle the health impacts of the climate crisis

The climate crisis is exacerbating the new axis of inequality in global health: the gap between stable and fragile settings. The consequences of this crisis include flooding, displacement, water scarcity, and food insecurity, and create outsized disease burdens in communities with the least resources to adapt. The risk is a repeat of the deeply unequal global impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, where disparities in the early response may have doubled the death toll in low-income countries. The 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 28, can do better on climate by delivering proven health solutions in the hardest hit, least resourced settings. 

The health impacts of climate are most severe and most deadly in what we at the International Rescue Committee are calling the epicenter of the climate and health crisis — 16 countries where conflict and climate change overlap. These contexts account for 10% of the global population but over 60% of global humanitarian need. They receive only one-third as much climate adaptation financing as their stable counterparts not affected by conflict or fragility. 

The funding disparity is even greater in the health sector. In the last 10 years, less than 5% of climate adaptation financing has gone to the health sector, and only a quarter of that has gone to fragile settings. We are grossly under-resourced to face climate-driven health threats in the very places where they threaten the most lives.