22 July 2026 — Following July’s
NATO summit, and with hostilities resuming in the
US-Iran war after a 60-day ceasefire, a new report
from the Global
Climate and Health Alliance highlights the deep
interlinkages between climate change and armed conflict, and
how the intersection of these issues become mutually
reinforcing drivers of harm to human
health.
The report, Climate
Change, Armed Conflict, and Global Public Health: A
Reinforcing Cycle of Harm presents current evidence
on the relationship between climate change and armed
conflict, and its implications for global public health. The
report
finds that each such crisis does not occur in isolation but
rather they converge in a polycrisis, a condition in which
multiple global crises such as climate change, armed
conflict, economic instability, under-resourced health
systems, and an evolving digital landscape interact and
amplify one another, generating a significant threat to
global public health.
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“This report shows that
from wildfires to wars, trying to address each of the
elements of the polycrisis in isolation will impact the
health of everyone, with the world’s most vulnerable
people worst affected”, said Dr Courtney
Howard, Board Chair 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.
“Increasing
instability in Earth’s climate, oceans and biodiversity
will continue to act as a threat multiplier, threatening
human security worldwide”, continued
Howard. “To pull out of this worsening
climate-conflict spiral, humanity must shift from reacting
to individual crises to systematically investing in
strengthening the ecological, social, and institutional
foundations of wellbeing. This can create reinforcing
feedback that improves health, resilience, and peace
together, as envisioned in the Paris
Agreement and the Pact
for the Future.”
“The report
shows us that governments and international financial actors
must respond to climate change with increased investment in
climate adaptation, the building of resilient health systems
– including renewable-powered healthcare facilities – and by
ensuring capabilities for strong humanitarian responses”,
said Dr Howard.
“The Global
Climate and Health Alliance is calling on governments to
recognise that redirecting investments away from climate
change and health and into the military will not in itself
deliver security – it is essential they make greater
sustainable investment in climate-resilient communities and
health systems, universal access to clean energy, stronger
multilateral cooperation, and adherence to international
humanitarian law”, added Jeni Miller,
Executive Director of the Global
Climate and Health Alliance. “By investing in
climate mitigation and adaptation we can reduce the
stressors that exacerbate conflict, build resilient health
systems, communities and economies, and ensure that robust
humanitarian responses are part and parcel of securing a
peaceful future”.
Climate change is a threat
multiplier that threatens people’s access to life
essentials including food, water, livelihood, and energy. It
causes migration and forced displacement, creating tensions
that can exacerbate armed conflict. Armed conflict in turn
drives people from their homes and disrupts or destroys life
necessities, while doing major environmental harm – a
devastating cycle that has severe implications for global
public health.
The report
highlights that the intersecting and compounding interplay
between climate change and armed conflict have devastating
effects in conflict zones themselves, while often also
having repercussions across neighboring countries, whole
regions, or even internationally. These range from the
effects of conflict- and climate change-driven migration, to
impacts on the availability of resources as acutely
demonstrated by the current US-Iran war and its global
effects on fuel prices, food prices, and more. For
populations already in vulnerable circumstances, those
vulnerabilities are severely worsened, with refugees and
asylum seekers, women and girls, children, older adults,
remote and rural communities, and Indigenous communities
bearing a disproportionate burden of this
convergence.
“Healthcare professionals provide
on-the-ground care in conflict and humanitarian settings,
where their safety should be sacrosanct”, said Dr
Omnia El Omrani, Global Climate and Health
Alliance Vice Chair and former
UNFCCC Youth Envoy. “They are also well positioned to
speak to the health impacts of climate change, violence and
human rights violations, through education, evidence-based
advocacy, and engaging with decisionmakers and policy
processes. Doctors know firsthand the strain that climate
change puts on communities, how climate change compounds
other threats, and the myriad direct and indirect ways that
armed conflict devastates communities’ health and
safety.”
“Every government must ensure the
protection of healthcare personnel, and health and critical
infrastructure in every conflict setting, and it is
unacceptable that these protections are increasingly being
violated”, added Howard. “In addition,
governments must provide greater accountability for
greenhouse gas emissions from military activities, so that
we know the extent to which military action is putting both
our present and our future at risk”.
“World
leaders and policymakers should heed the warnings in this report
– only an integrated approach that continues to advance
climate action, invests in people’s health and well being,
and pursues peacebuilding over aggression will deliver true
security”, concluded
Miller.
About
GCHA
The Global Climate and Health Alliance is a
consortium of more than 250 health professional and health
civil society organisations and networks from around the
world addressing climate change. We are united by a shared
vision of an equitable, sustainable future, in which the
health impacts of climate change are minimised, and the
health co-benefits of climate change mitigation are
maximised.
Find out more: https://climateandhealthalliance.org/who-we-are/about/
