Greater investment in climate services for health needed for escalating challenges

At the World Health Summit in Berlin, Wellcome announced a US$25 million grant for World Health Organisation (WHO) activities on the health effects of climate change, with an additional US$6 million going to WMO.  The grant will support WMO’s joint climate and health programme with WHO, aiming to ensure that the health sector is able to access and use authoritative meteorological data to inform understanding of and response to climate threats,

Alan Dangour, Director of Climate and Health at Wellcome, said that investment in climate and health must embrace both the meteorological and public health sectors.

“Rising temperatures, extreme weather, and shifting disease patterns are straining health systems worldwide. Yet, despite growing awareness, we’re not fully leveraging climate information and services for health decisions,” WMO Assistant Secretary-General Thomas Asare said at a meeting held during the World Health Summit.

“At the World Meteorological Organization, we believe that a cross-sectoral approach  that brings together climate science, health policy, and operational decision-making is crucial to overcoming this challenge. Strong governance, effective collaboration, and innovation are the keys to unlocking climate data’s potential for life-saving actions. Operational excellence is equally vital. Systems must be scalable, efficient, and responsive to real-time risks,” said Mr. Asare.

Climate change is widely regarded as a public health emergency. Each year, extreme heat alone claims on average nearly half a million lives, whilst severe weather patterns are driving outbreaks of diseases like malaria, cholera, and dengue fever, and polluted air increases respiratory diseases, cancer, and dementia worldwide.

Urban Climate-Health Nexus

The philanthropic sector is now a major player in climate and health.

Both Wellcome and the Rockefeller Foundation made a  US $100 million commitment to test and scale climate and health solutions at the COP28 climate conference last December.

On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September, the Rockefeller Foundation launched a report supported by WHO and WMO calling for greater investment and partnership between meteorology and health, particularly at the urban level where populations are most exposed to climate-related health risks. More than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas.

The report, Urban Climate-Health Action: A New Approach to Protecting Health in the Era of Climate Change, identifies the critical gaps in city-level responses to climate-induced health threats. Its three-step roadmap seeks to help cities around the world more effectively plan for, and respond to the global health emergency caused by climate change.

WMO Assistant Secretary-General Thomas Asare on a panel discussion at a Wellcome event at the World Health Summit.

WMO-WHO Joint Office on Climate and Health

WHO and WMO work closely together to advance integrated climate and health science and services to better protect human health from climate change, extreme weather and climate, water, air quality, solar radiation, and other environmental hazards. 

By working together, WHO and WMO are strengthening, harmonizing and leveraging resources and opportunities to empower and support Member States and partners through interagency cooperation.

At the Global Digital Health Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, on 2 December, PATH announced it will help strengthen the WHO-WMO  Joint Programme for Climate & Health. With $1.5 million in grant funding from The Rockefeller Foundation and Wellcome, PATH, through its Digital Square initiative, will help to advance Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and Digital Public Goods (DPGs) for Climate- and Health-informed Data Systems while continuing to serve as a neutral convener of innovative digital health initiatives. 

This support includes digital global goods that facilitate the development and use of interoperable and accessible digital tools that bring data from different sectors together—such as extreme weather, climate change, disease prevalence data, and more—to better protect those most vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change, according to the announcement. 

WMO has a 2023–2033 Implementation Plan for Advancing Climate, Environment and Health Science and Services to meet rising demand for its expertise. This promotes a coordinated approach for the generation and application of the best available knowledge of climate, weather, air pollution, UV radiation, extreme events and other environmental risks on human health.

The WMO State of Climate Services for Health report issued last year, in collaboration with WHO, showed significant untapped potential for the application of climate science and services to health decision-making.

National Meteorological Services can be frontline partners to plan and become more resilient to extreme weather and climate change impacts. They provide reliable and robust data, information, and authoritative early warnings. The ClimaHealth portal provides integrated information on climate and health.

The Rockefeller Foundation provided support to the joint WMO-WHO Climate and Health Office to explore global digital goods for climate and health. In September 2024, the Foundation along with WMO and Wellcome Trust brought together over 75 technical partners to advance action towards the development of scalable, reliable, interoperable systems for integrated climate-informed health monitoring. This workshop advanced a three-year technical and policy agenda for the use of weather and climate information for health decision making. 

There is a need to rapidly accelerate the availability of technical assistance and support to expand the use of climate services which can respond to the “tsunami” of demand for climate and weather information coming from countries to drive adaption strategies which will protect the health of vulnerable communities.

“With these new resources from philanthropic partners, we hope to drive a transformation in the application of climate science from ad-hoc successes at the project level, to system-based solutions that support decision-making in health policy and practice at scale,” says Joy Shumake-Guillemot, Head of the Joint Climate and Health Programme.

Extreme Heat

One of the WMO-WHO joint office priorities is extreme heat, which is one of the most pressing climate-related health risks. In order to respond to unprecedented and rising temperatures globally, the UN Secretary-General in July issued a call to action on Extreme Heat, supported by WMO, WHO and other UN agencies and the Global Heat Health Information Network.

In the past year, widespread, intense and extended heatwaves hit communities on every continent. At least ten countries recorded temperatures of more than 50° C in more than one location, with many dozens of locations having daytime maximum temperatures of more than 40°C and dangerously high minimum overnight temperatures.

The mortality toll from extreme heat is widely believed to be under-reported and there is a pressing need for better surveillance and heat-health action plans. The global scale-up of heat health-warning systems for 57 countries alone has the potential to save nearly 100,000 lives, according to WHO-WMO analysis.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), cities are particularly vulnerable, as urbanization intensifies the local effects of heat.  Extreme heatwaves in cities are expected to become more frequent, with the severity of heatwaves increasing dramatically. This urban heat, combined with compromised air quality, fire risk, water insecurity -- puts millions of people at high risk and presents a challenge to urban health systems. Urban residents will remain dangerously exposed to these risks - without sound climate-information to inform civil protection and urban planning.