Climate health emergency: Scientists demand WHO declare climate crisis global public health threat

Muhammad Asghar | GlobalBeat

Over 1,000 health experts urged WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday to classify climate change as a global public health emergency.

The letter warns rising temperatures kill 7 million people annually through air pollution alone and warns current classifications fail to reflect the escalating crisis.

The World Health Organization currently lists 35 diseases as public health emergencies of international concern, including COVID-19 and Ebola. Climate change lacks this designation despite mounting evidence linking extreme weather to heart disease, respiratory illness, malnutrition and mental health disorders.

Dr. Tony O’Sullivan, former director of the UK public health charity Medact, said the current framework ignores an accelerating threat. “The climate crisis is killing more people than most infectious diseases we monitor,” he told reporters during the letter’s release. “WHO has the authority and the evidence. It must act.”

The petition arrives as southern Europe faces its earliest heatwave in decades, pushing temperatures past 40°C in Spain and Portugal this week. Hospitals in Seville reported a 25% surge in heat-related admissions compared to May 2023, according to the regional health ministry.

Projections paint a grim picture. The Lancet Climate and Health Commission estimates climate change will cause an additional 250,000 deaths annually between 2030 and 2050 from heat exposure, malaria, diarrhea and malnutrition alone. Children, elderly people and pregnant women face the highest risks.

The signatories include former WHO directors, current public health ministers, and medical associations from 85 countries spanning six continents. The group specifically called for WHO to activate its International Health Regulations emergency committee — the body that declared COVID-19 a pandemic in 2020.

Dr. Maria Neira, WHO’s director of public health and environment, acknowledged the petition during a news conference in Geneva. “We received the letter and are reviewing its contents carefully,” she said. “The connection between climate change and health is undeniable.”

Neira stopped short of promising emergency status, noting WHO already considers climate change one of humanity’s gravest health threats. The agency established its climate and health unit in 2008 and has published annual reports tracking environmental health risks since 2014.

Diplomatic pressure is mounting. The Maldives health minister Abdulla Khaleel signed the letter, citing existential threats to his island nation. “Our hospitals sit meters from rising seas,” he said in a statement. “Every high tide floods our clinics. This is already a health emergency for us.”

Economic arguments bolster the medical case. The World Bank estimates climate-linked health costs will reach $4 billion annually by 2030 in developing countries alone, mostly from treating malnutrition and vector-borne diseases. Insurance giant Swiss Re warns these numbers exclude lost productivity from extreme heat, which already reduces global GDP by 0.6%.

The petition arrives months before COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, where health ministers will meet for only the second time in UN climate conference history. Dr. Jeni Miller, executive director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, said WHO action would strengthen negotiators’ hands. “Climate ministers need health data to justify emissions cuts,” she explained. “Emergency status gives them that ammunition.”

Some WHO member states resist broader emergency declarations. Russia and China previously argued climate change falls outside WHO’s infectious disease mandate, according to two delegates who briefed GlobalBeat on condition of anonymity because negotiations are private. The United States delegation, now under the Trump administration, has questioned expanding WHO’s authority across non-medical sectors.

The emergency designation carries more weight than statements. It would require countries to report health impacts to WHO headquarters and could unlock emergency funding mechanisms. During COVID-19, WHO’s emergency committee coordinated vaccine distribution, border controls and research priorities among 194 member states.

Dr. Renee Salas, an emergency physician at Harvard Medical School who studies climate health, said the petition reflects doctors’ daily reality. “I treated a construction worker yesterday for heat stroke when it was 38°C in Boston,” she said. “Five years ago, that temperature would have been impossible in May. My emergency department is becoming a climate change ward.”

Background

The World Health Organization defines a public health emergency of international concern as “an extraordinary event” that constitutes a health risk to multiple countries and requires coordinated response. The framework emerged from the 2003 SARS outbreak, when countries struggled to share information and resources during the crisis.

Climate change entered WHO’s radar in 2008 after extreme flooding in Myanmar killed 138,000 people and displaced 2.4 million. The organization began publishing climate health assessments but never applied its highest emergency designation, despite linking air pollution to 1 in 8 global deaths and warning that heat exposure could exceed human physiological limits in parts of the Middle East and South Asia by 2070.

What’s Next

WHO’s executive board meets in January 2027, where member states could pressure Director-General Tedros to convene the emergency committee or face an unprecedented member vote overriding his authority. The petitioners vow daily protests outside WHO headquarters until they receive a formal response, promising to escalate tactics during September’s UN General Assembly.

Meanwhile, scientists warn the window for preventing worst-case scenarios narrows each year the designation remains absent. “We don’t need another study,” said Dr. Neira. “We need WHO to call climate change what it already is — a health emergency spreading faster than any disease we’ve ever tracked.”