As climate talks continue in the Amazonian city of Belém, Brazil, governments, UN agencies and partners have adopted the Belém Health Action Plan, which emphasizes addressing health inequalities.
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A planet headed for ‘intensive care’
The adoption took place on the COP’s designated health day – a recognition that the climate crisis is also a health crisis.
“If our planet was a patient, it would be in intensive care,” World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on the eve of the conference.
Extreme heat, floods, droughts and storms are not just environmental threats – they drive disease outbreaks, food and water insecurity and disruption of essential health services.
A UNFPA mobile health clinic midwife assesses a pregnant woman in a displacement camp in Marib, Yemen.
Plan for resilience
The action plan, developed by WHO, the UN University (UNU) and other UN partners in collaboration with the Brazilian government, sets out practical steps to integrate health into climate strategies
- Strengthening health systems to withstand climate shock
- Mobilization of finance and technology for adaptation and
- Ensuring communities have a voicethat promotes their participation in governance.
Brazil’s Health Minister Alexandre Padilha described the launch as “a decisive moment to demonstrate the strength of the health sector in global climate action”
Civil society demonstration at COP30
Solution Hub
Thursday’s high-level sessions in the main conference rooms are dominated by speeches and discussions about climate and health – but throughout COP30, the WHO-led health pavilion has been the focal point for solutions and dialogue.
The topics covered at the pavilion range from artificial intelligence to waste management, jobs, education and human rights – all from a health perspective.
Friday in the pavilion will be dedicated to the Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate and Health, a WHO-led initiative to accelerate the transition to climate-resilient and low-carbon health systems.
Breakthrough of food waste
Also today, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and its partners launched an initiative to halve food waste by 2030 and cut up to seven percent of methane emissions as part of efforts to curb climate change.
UNEP notes that the world wastes more than one billion tons of food each year, contributing up to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and accounting for up to 14 percent of methane emissions, a short-lived climate pollutant that is 84 times more powerful at warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over 20 years.
Funded by the Global Environment Facility, the United Nations Environment Program will launch a four-year, $3 million global project to implement the goals of the Food Waste Breakthrough.
