Written by Simon Jessop and Anna Portella
BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) – With more than half a million people worldwide dying from heat-related causes each year, a group of charities is investing $300 million to develop life-saving solutions as global temperatures continue to rise.
The funds, announced this week at the COP30 climate negotiations in Brazil, aim to develop data and identify the best investments to address rising risks from extreme heat, air pollution and infectious diseases.
“We are a charity,” said Estelle Wylie, director of health policy and communications at the Rockefeller Foundation, one of the funders. “We cannot continue to fill gaps and revive a dying development model.”
“So what we’re trying to do is through our philanthropic capital, we can start testing and validating new solutions through this work and collaboration together,” she said.
Separately, Brazil, the host country of COP30, launched an initiative called the Belem Health Action Plan to encourage countries to monitor and coordinate climate-related health policies across their different ministries and departments.
The effort is part of Brazil’s broader focus at the UN climate talks on strengthening countries’ ability to prepare for — and adapt to — worsening climate impacts including floods, fires, droughts, storms and hurricanes.
The newly pledged $300 million adds to the $1 to $2 billion of public money being spent on research into climate-related health impacts, according to a 2023 study in the journal PLOS.
Experts said more is still needed.
“Progress in health is declining,” Wiley said in an interview with Reuters. “We have won hard-won victories in health through technology, through the global health system. But climate change is making each problem and global health worse right now.”
A report published in the scientific journal The Lancet in October estimates that the annual number of deaths from heat-related causes exacerbated by climate change is about 550,000 people.
The report said another 150,000 deaths a year could be linked to air pollution, often from the burning of fossil fuels but also from worsening forest fires, while some infectious diseases are also on the rise. Reported dengue cases have also risen by 49% since the 1950s, she added.
UN agencies estimated in August that about half the world’s population, or more than 3.3 billion people, were already suffering from rising temperatures.
“Scientists’ warnings about climate change are coming true,” said John Arne Röttingen, chief executive of the Wellcome Trust, another funder. “It is clear that not all people are affected equally.”
He said the most vulnerable groups were children, pregnant women, the elderly and outdoor workers, along with “those communities with the least resources to respond.”
Other funders in the newly announced coalition of climate and health funders include the Gates Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the IKEA Foundation. Another 27 charities have signed on but have not yet committed funds.
(Reporting by Simon Jessup, Lais Moraes and Ana Portela in Belem, Brazil; Writing by Katie Daigle; Editing by David Gregorio)