BAKU – The World Health Organization and United Nations Climate Conference (COP29) host, Azerbaijan, issued a joint call to countries on Wednesday to adopt more  “healthy'” Nationally Determined Commitments (NDCs) in their next set of plans for climate action. The next NCDs are due to be submitted in early 2025. 

But as carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from burning fossil fuels continued to increase this year over last, reaching record highs, it remains to be seen how this year’s conference appeals, hosted by an oil-flush central Asian nation, might resonate among countries.  

The “health argument” for climate action also was a popular political refrain at COP28 in Dubai. In the year since, global carbon emissions from fossil fuels reached a record high, according to new research that was released Wednesday by the Global Carbon Project. 

Emissions in 2024 are set to rise 0.8% over last year, for a total of 37.4 billion tonnes, stated the Global Carbon Budget, a peer-reviewed analysis of trends involving some 80 research institutions, and hosted by the University of Exeter. Including increased-drought related deforestation and wildfires, emissions are projected to be 41.6 billion tons in 2024, up from 40.6 billion tons last year.

That includes a projected increase of 2.4% in gas emissions, 0.9% for oil and 0.2% for coal. They contribute 21%, 32% and 41% of fossil fuel emissions respectively.

The world’s remaining carbon budget is almost exhausted – and time left to meet the 1.5°C target and avoid the worst impacts of climate change – has almost run out, the report stated. 

“The impacts of climate change are becoming increasingly dramatic, yet we still see no sign that burning of fossil fuels has peaked,” said Prof Pierre Friedlingstein of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, who led the study.

 New ‘Continuity Coalition’ issues the call to make NDCs ‘Healthy’

The current set of NDCs upon which global climate action is hinged expire at the end of this year. They are already failing by a wide margin to meet the 2015 Paris agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5° C. Data released last week by the World Meteorological Organization suggested that the world had already exceeded the 1.5° C limit this year. 

Against that background, the call to adopt more health-focused NDCs will be integral to a new COP29 health initiative that aims to ensure continuity between promises and action on commitments made at this COP and future climate events. 

The initiative, called the Baku COP Presidency’s Continuity Coalition on Climate and Health, was announced by the WHO and Azerbijan’s COP29 presidency at a high-level event on Wednesday. 

“This initiative unites the visionary leadership of five COP Presidencies that span this critical time for action, underscoring a commitment to elevate health within the climate agenda,” said WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“With air pollution taking the lives of 7 million people each year, it’s clear that reducing emissions is a fundamental matter of public health,” he said.

‘Continuity Coalition’ aims to enable more coordinated action on health between climate conferences

The “Continuity Coalition” aims to help enhance ambition and enable more coordinated action on health and climate from year to year, asserted Azerbijan’s COP29 president, Mukhtar Babayev, the country’s ecology minister and a former oil executive, at Wednesday’s event. 

“COP26, COP27 and COP28 all added to global efforts on health,” he said. “First, the coalition will bolster ambition by supporting the implementation of existing initiatives and improving synergy between them. It will then ensure continuity from COP to COP by providing a platform for dialogue among presidencies and stakeholders from all parties of the society for climate and health growth. And it will ensure we fulfill past promises and maximize their impact.”

The coalition will be formally launched on 18 November in the presence of the countries that have held COP presidencies over the past three years (the United Kingdom, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates), as well as Brazil, which is hosting COP 30 in 2025 in Rio.  

Days before COP29 opened, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Energy Minister and COP29 CEO, Elnur Soltanov, was filmed surreptitiously by an NGO promoting SOCAR‘s oil and gas projects, saying “We have a lot of pipeline infrastructure. We have a lot of gas fields that are to be developed. We have a lot of green projects that SOCAR is very interested in.”

Babayev declined comment on the remarks to Reuters.

‘Climate Crisis is a Health Crisis’

Despite such headwinds, WHO and other health-focused research and civil society organizations have sought for years to build up a stronger drumbeat around their core message that the climate crisis is a health crisis. 

WHO’s Special Report on Climate Change and Health, issued just last week, estimates that as many as 1.9 million premature deaths annually could be averted by scaling up five interventions: early warning systems for extreme heat, powering health facilities with solar power, water, sanitation and hygiene, cleaner household energy, and reducing or removing fossil fuel subsidies.

A rapid transition to renewable energy, as well as keeping temperatures below the 1.5°C benchmark is critical to avoiding a spiralling death count from climate change in coming decades, the global health agency, backed by hundreds of other scientists, has long maintained.

But few countries so far have heeded those warnings, despite a rising toll of deaths from extreme heat, flooding and other climate-related weather events, as well as drought-threatening food security, wildfires and other visible climate impacts, according to the recent Lancet Countdown Climate and Health report card.

Lancet’s Climate and Health Report Card: Governments, Oil and Gas Companies ‘Fuelling the Fire’ of Cascading Impacts

‘No country can say we didn’t know’

Along with changing weather patterns, increased infectious and non-communicable diseases, as well as mental health, are just a few more amongst the long list of health impacts from global warming that countries need to address in their NDCs, said Dr Maria Neira, WHO’s Director of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health.

A new guidance document by WHO explains to countries how they can  incorporate health at the heart of their NDCs, she said. The document is called the “Quality criteria for integrating health into Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).”

Neira also pointed to the low levels of funding available to the health sector for climate action.

“We have less than 1% of the global funds from climate finance going to health. Governments can divert the finance from fossil fuels subsidies to this,” she said.  

That’s hardly been the case, to date, particularly in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, where investments in clean energy remain comparatively small.

And although some 1 billion people worldwide lack access to health facilities with reliable energy services, the first health sector project to be approved by the Green Climate Fund in Africa, fails to address critical energy shortages in its investment plan.   

The initiative, co-sponsored by Save the Children Australia, will help Malawi establish “early warning systems for climate-sensitive diseases,” said GCF Africa Department specialist, Patrick Gitonga, in a video promotion.

“It brings much needed climate resilience building to the health care establishment through the establishment and dissemination of climate-informed health  surveillance and early warning systems for a range of climate sensitive disease, including malaria, diarrhoeal disease, and extreme heat-related diseases,” he said.

While the project aims to improve water and sanitation infrastructure in Malawi’s health facilities, it makes no mention of renewable energy access for energy-starved African health facilities, where one-half of hospitals lack reliable electricity and 15% of clinics have no electricity at all.

Overall, energy-starved Sub Saharan Africa is among those regions of the world to have seen the least investment, public or private, in renewables, even while fossil fuel expansion, which is more expensive and less efficient in terms of expanding electricity access, continues apace.

–Elaine Ruth Fletcher contributed to reporting on this story.

Image Credits: Global Carbon Project , WHO, IEA , Green Climate Fund .