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The WHO must declare climate change a Public Health Emergency of International Concern to address its devastating health impacts, including heat-related deaths, malnutrition, and disease outbreaks.
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Vulnerable populations, especially in the global south, face disproportionate risks.
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A declaration would mobilise ree-based strategies to mitigate this escalating crisis
Across the world, people have felt the impacts of climate change firsthand. The northern hemisphere has had another record-breaking summer season ofheat and extreme weather events
. The south now faces a summer of heatwaves, flooding, wildfires and droughts. This is driven by decades of climate change, now supercharged by an unprecedentedEl Niño
– the warm phase of theEl Niño Southern Oscillation
, which is a cyclical warming and cooling of the Pacific ocean driven by changing trade winds, with global impacts on the climate.
Extreme events driven by climate change have displaced entire communities in recent cyclones and floods inNepal
. More than 250,000 people lost everything in a recent wildfire inSpain
. In European cities, over50,000 are reported to have died
from heat in the past summer, over 65 per cent of those deaths being directly attributable to climate change. These events underscore the reality that climate change is not some future risk scenario. It’s an immediate threat to the world’s most vulnerable communities and people.
As public health researchers and professionals seeking to understand and respond to the health impacts of climate change, this is of great concern to us. Inour own work
, on the impact of heat on pregnant women and children in Africa, we have found far-reaching impacts on the health of the mother during pregnancy, on poor birth outcomes, and potentially lifelong problems for unborn children. In an earlier study, wealso found
that the healthcare workers tasked with caring for these vulnerable communities were negatively affected by climate change.
Most recently, weworked
, through research with communities in South Africa, to understand the ways people try to adapt to climate change. It is increasingly clear that communities know about the risks they face from climate change. They experience these daily. They simply do not have the re
The World Health Organization (WHO) and leading scientists have for decades considered climate change to be thegreatest health threat
in the 21st century. However, instead of having a global health architecture that is ready to pre-empt and respond to climate change, we, as public health professionals, have left the responsibility to aUN system built on consensus
. Progress has been painfully slow, and more recently,completely stalled
. Despite successive commitments, the world has failed its goal of preventingwarming of 1.5°C
.
It is with this in mind thatwe call
for the WHO to declare the health impacts of climate change a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC
). This declaration would galvanise political will, mobilise financing and provide evidence-based recommendations for an urgent public health response.
Health impacts of climate change
The health impacts of climate change are widespread, compounding the vulnerability of individuals and health systems. The elderly, pregnant women and children, and those living with chronic illnesses are themost at risk
of suffering impacts. But these populations often have the least re affected
by climate change and generallycontribute to it the least
For these groups, climate change means another season of crop failures that leaves theirchildren malnourished
; a flood that cuts them off from theirlocal clinic
and the medication that keeps them healthy, and alive; amalaria season
that means losing a child or a friend to a preventable disease; a pregnancy that ends in heartbreak during aheatwave
.
New scientific approaches, likeimpact attribution
, are being developed to show exactly how much climate change is contributing to these adverse health outcomes. This strengthens the public’s confidence in the scientific consensus.
A narrow window to respond as El Niño intensifies
The world now faces an unprecedentedEl Niño season
. Arecent report
forecasts 451,000 additional heat-related deaths from June 2026 to February 2027. This is roughly equivalent to the number of deaths due toCOVID-19 in the first six months
of the pandemic.
The WHO has a mechanism to deal with unprecedented threats to public health, especially those that require international collaboration. TheInternational Health Regulations
set out very clearly the processes and actions that must be taken in response to a potential Public Health Emergency of International Concern. This isdefined
as:
an extraordinary event that (i) constitutes a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease, and (ii) potentially requires a coordinated international response.
To trigger a potential Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the International Health Regulationsprescribe
that two of the following four conditions be met:
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Is the public health threat serious?
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Is the event unusual or unexpected?
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Is there significant risk of international spread?
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Is there a risk of international travel or trade restrictions?
Call to action
Manyhave called
for such a declaration in response to the climate crisis, which meets most of, if not all, the criteria. We haveargued elsewhere
that any further delays will result in needless loss of life, and preventable harms to the most vulnerable in society. This urgent call has beensupported
by health ministries across Africa, including Senegal, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
Declaring a Public Health Emergency of International Concern would enable anequitable response
rooted in the principles and ethics of public health: care and support for those most affected; large-scale prevention; and surveillance of impacts. It would enable international collaboration, catalyse finance and ensure central coordination and support from the WHO.
It is time for countries to trigger the International Health Regulations process and have an expert committee assess the risks we face and provide recommendations to respond. It is time for WHO to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, and for us to face this threat together as an international community, before it is too late.
Nicholas Brink
, Director: International, Wits Planetary Health Research,University of the Witwatersrand
;Fortunate Machingura
, Global Challenges Research Fund Post Doctoral Fellow and Lecturer ,University of Manchester
;Matthew Chersich
, Professor,University of the Witwatersrand
, andRobb Butler:
, Visiting Professor in Practice,London School of Economics and Political Science
This article is republished fromThe Conversation
under a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article
.
