UN climate chief warns climate crisis is a health emergency

The United Nations climate chief warned that climate change is now a global health crisis of pandemic scale, Euronews reported on Monday. Simon Stiell, the UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, stated that countries must protect their national health systems from growing environmental threats. The announcement came during the UN climate change conference, COP31, which is taking place in Antalya, Turkey. [1]

Euronews reported that world leaders and experts gathered in Antalya for the summit, which runs from 9 November to 20 November 2026. Health impacts, including risks from air pollution and extreme heat, are a central focus of the conference discussions. Stiell warned that climate disasters are creating widespread threats to public health worldwide. [1]

Calls to address the health impacts of climate change have escalated in recent weeks. As FTMQ News reported earlier, authors of a Lancet Countdown report urged international bodies, including the World Health Organization and the UN, to formally declare climate change a global health emergency. That report noted that climate-related health risks have increased rapidly since the 2016 Paris Agreement. [5]

Environmental pressures are also affecting sleep across Europe, as FTMQ News reported previously. Researchers publishing in the Journal of Sleep Research warned that climate change, technology, and work culture are undermining sleep health across the continent. Separately, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic a public health emergency of international concern in January 2020 before ending that designation in May 2023. [2][4]