COP30 Delivers Incremental Climate Action, But Lack Of Implementation Support Jeopardises Health

Belém, 22 November 2025:- As the COP 30 climate summit closed today, the Global Climate and Health Alliance bemoaned governments’ failure to deliver a genuinely transformative COP, including the lack of agreed progress on the phaseout of fossil fuels, while noting some areas of progress - such as institutional architecture to support just transitions and increased adaptation finance, and an announcement from the COP president regarding a future roadmap for a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels. 
 
“Belém promised to deliver a turning point in progress on addressing climate change, and a COP that put people and action at its centre, but while progress has been made on some important issues, COP30 has not delivered on that turning point”, said Dr Jeni Miller, Executive Director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, a consortium of more than 200 health professional and health civil society organisations and networks from around the world addressing climate change. “On the two most decisive issues for people’s health addressed at this COP, adaptation finance to enable developing countries to better protect people’s lives and health in the face of climate impacts; and phasing out fossil fuels to prevent accelerating climate change from reaching unlivable levels, governments gave us mixed progress on finance, but while the COP president signalled a future roadmap on ending the fossil fuel era, there is a lack of clarity on what this will look like”. 
 
“While not a total loss, COP30 certainly cannot be counted as a strong win for people around the world who are looking to our leaders to take meaningful action that will protect us all from climate change”, said Miller.
 
Adaptation COP Delays Mean More Suffering
“At the eleventh hour, the list of indicators proposed by experts several months ago was modified, with the Presidency presenting a list which many considered to be methodologically infeasible”, said Miller. While the decision was adopted, further work in Bonn at the June intersessionals will be vital in order to be able to begin monitoring whether or not adaptation is sufficient to protect health and lives.”
 
“While the COP30 agreement to triple adaptation finance by 2035 is a positive step, pushing out the delivery date compared to the 2030 timeline requested by developing countries means many more people will suffer, many more people will die”, said Miller. “Every country is now experiencing the impacts of climate change in real time. Without timely and vital finance - as well as technical support and capacity building - developing countries are becoming overwhelmed by the growing impacts of the climate crisis.”
 
“Developing countries, which have done little to cause the climate crisis, and are grappling with poverty, struggling health systems, and fragile infrastructure, are far less equipped to prepare for and adapt to those impacts”, said Miller. “Even in high income countries, healthcare systems are being stretched to the limit - lives, homes, clinics, livelihoods, and the health of whole populations are at risk. For low-income developing countries, existing financial flows are difficult to access and have historically come with crippling interest rates creating an impossible debt burden that syphons domestic funds away from healthcare, education, and domestic infrastructure.”
 
Fossil Fuel Phase Out - What Next?
During plenary on November 22, Brazil’s COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago said he would create two roadmaps, one on halting and reversing deforestation, and one on transitioning away from fossil fuels in a just orderly and equitable manner. He added that these will be led by science and will be inclusive - with a series of high level dialogues and a report back to COP. Meanwhile, Colombia sought to propose inclusion of language in the mitigation decision that further work on just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels would be undertaken in 2026, but this was not incorporated into the text.
 
“Failure by governments at COP30 to agree to a phase out of fossil fuels not only increases the risk to people from climate impacts, but ensures that all countries will increasingly become overwhelmed”, continued Miller. “Without phasing out fossil fuels - the primary driver of climate change - impacts will continue to grow, we will experience dangerous and irreversible tipping points in critical earth systems; communities, as well as healthcare systems, will quickly reach the limits of their ability to adapt. If we do not succeed in phasing out fossil fuels we will see healthcare systems collapse and widespread suffering.” 
 
Just Transition 
In the final text of the just transition work programme, governments recognised the importance of protecting the human right to health and a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in just transitions, as well as the links between renewable energy and clean cooking. They also decided to establish a just transition mechanism, to enhance international cooperation, technical assistance, capacity-building and knowledge sharing, and enable equitable, inclusive just transitions. ‘These are sure steps forward, but resourcing will be necessary to operationalise this support to ensure health is not only recognised but actively protected and promoted through just transitions.” 
 
Leadership Required
“Leadership does not require consensus”, said Miller.” The 80 countries that expressed support for a fossil fuel phase out plan can lead by example, particularly wealthy developed countries that have the most resources to invest. Phasing out use and extraction of fossil fuels will benefit their own people’s health and reduce the drain on health systems and public coffers from the health harms of fossil fuels.” 
 
“Meanwhile developed countries should not have to be told by the latest COP conference to meet the commitments they made in the Paris Agreement”, concluded Miller. “Supporting the most impacted, least developed countries with finance and other support is a step wealthy, developed countries can and should take. It is not only a commitment agreed in 2021, it is an investment in global stability, in international goodwill, and in cooperation, an investment in solving a global problem together.

Quotes from GCHA member organizations and Board Members
 
Howard Catton, CEO, International Council of Nurses:
"Nurses carry the memories of patients whose suffering is tied to fossil fuels. We see the child gasping for air, the family grieving after climate disasters, and Indigenous communities losing health, land, and safety. These harms are not abstract. They deepen inequities and push health systems beyond their limits. Nurses are the ones who sit beside the patient, witnessing their pain and knowing these harms are not random, but driven by human choices. They are preventable if leaders listen to those on the frontlines. We are calling for urgent investment in resilient health systems and a strong health workforce, and we are calling for a rapid and just phase out of fossil fuels to protect the health of people and the planet.”
 
Dr. Courtney Howard, Board Chair of the Global Climate and Health Alliance:
“I serve a majority Indigenous population that extends to the high Arctic across an area larger than France and Spain combined. We’re warming at triple the global rate. In 2023 wildfires forced the evacuation of our hundred-bed hospital, down to Vancouver. The costs were staggering. Smoke from these fires circled the planet — exposing 354million people to increased air pollution leading to over 82,000 premature deaths globally. The Belem Health Action Plan has excellent advice for adapting health systems to climate change. However, given the current severity of impacts, it is clear that even in a high income country we cannot adapt in a healthy way to the emissions trajectory we are on. The infrastructure, supply chains and workforce that high quality healthcare depends on will fray. It’s time for politicians and business leaders to decide to save lives with policies that phase out fossil fuels– so doctors can continue to save them via medical practice.”
 
Emily Bancroft, Emily Bancroft, Health Care Without Harm US
“The lesson from COP30 is clear: you cannot have healthy people without a healthy planet. COP30 highlighted real progress—from the launch of the Belém Health Action Plan to healthcare’s strengthened commitments to Race to Zero. Yet it also exposed the gaps we must confront: the political will to accelerate a just transition away from fossil fuels and inadequate financing to protect the most vulnerable. Without closing these gaps, people's lives and the planet on which we depend remain at risk. The health community will continue to lead by example, driving the action, evidence, and accountability needed to move the world toward a climate-resilient, equitable future.”
 
Gustavo H. N. Dalle Cort, Liaison Officer for Public Health Issues, International Federation of Medical Students Associations, a member of the GCHA Board of Directors
“As medical students, we make clear that the climate crisis is a health crisis, one that is already overburdening communities and deepening inequalities. If left unchecked, it will overwhelm health systems and cause even more loss and pain. Departing COP30, we are left feeling that there is much to do, there is a long path ahead - but time is running out. Without global unity, a clear way to a fossil fuel phase out and climate justice, it is our patients, especially the most vulnerable, who will suffer the most. We cannot afford any delays. Ahead of next year’s COP31, it is time to be bold and to take this health crisis seriously.”
 
Katie Huffling, Executive Director the the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, a member of the GCHA Board of Directors:
“For far too long climate negotiations have failed to deliver what the scale of the climate crisis requires - an end to our dependence on fossil fuels. Nurses came into this COP with a strong call to move from discussions to agreement on a roadmap for implementation and adequate finance to support a phase out of fossil fuels – centering health and grounded in equity and justice. While nurses applaud the launch of the Belém Health Action Plan, without adequate means of implementation and climate finance, it will remain solely a commitment. Nurses will continue to push global leaders to deliver action that provides the health protections our communities and future generations deserve.”

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