Stiell calls for climate plans that keep clinics open and patients safe
By: Oluwaseun Lawal
ANTALYA, Türkiye — Imagine a clinic during a heatwave. The building is stifling, the electricity cuts out, and the refrigerator storing medicines stops working. Then heavy rain floods a nearby water source, or a washed-out road prevents a pregnant woman from reaching care.
These are not distant climate projections. They are the kinds of pressures that can turn a strained health service into a crisis. At a COP31 ministerial meeting in Antalya, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell urged governments to make health a core part of climate planning and finance. UN Climate Change
Stiell’s argument was straightforward: climate change is already affecting whether health services can function when people need them. Hospitals and clinics must cope with heat, floods, unreliable power and unsafe water. Health workers also need the skills and warning systems to identify climate-related risks, including outbreaks, before they spread.
The impact can be especially serious for pregnant women and newborns. Stiell referred to survey findings from Wellcome showing that nearly all maternal-health professionals who took part had cared for a pregnant patient or baby whose health they believed had been affected by extreme heat. The point, he suggested, is simple. Telling people to avoid the heat offers little help if they have nowhere cool and safe to go.
For Stiell, the response starts with national climate plans that address practical questions. Can clinics remain open during a heatwave? Will they have clean water after a flood? Can health workers detect an outbreak early? And can people at the greatest risk actually reach the care they need?
Health ministries should help answer those questions from the beginning, he said. Their involvement can help align health priorities with national adaptation plans, while ensuring that health-sector plans support the country’s wider climate strategy. Finance must follow those priorities, too.
That means investing in health facilities that can withstand extreme weather and keep operating. It also means reliable clean electricity, secure water supplies, stronger disease surveillance, early warning systems and training for health workers. These measures are practical, but they need sustained funding and coordination to reach the places most exposed to climate risks.
Stiell pointed to the Belém adaptation indicators and voluntary Health Action Plan as tools countries can use to guide that work. At COP31, he urged governments to turn those frameworks into projects that strengthen hospitals, clinics and community health services. The call to increase adaptation finance by 2035, he added, must result in money reaching countries facing the greatest climate burdens, particularly those with fewer resources to respond.
Adaptation alone cannot protect people from every future impact. Stiell also called for a rapid and fair shift away from fossil fuels, including a major expansion of renewable energy and improved energy efficiency. Clean electricity can keep medical equipment running and medicines cold. Cleaner air can also reduce the number of people who need treatment for pollution-related illness.
He described the Antalya Health Accelerator Initiative as a way to help connect plans with implementation, bringing cooperation, leadership and finance behind national priorities. The aim, as he presented it, is to strengthen countries’ own systems rather than set up parallel programmes.
The next Global Stocktake will give countries an opportunity to report what they have done. Stiell said health should be part of that picture: whether health facilities are stronger, workers better prepared, warnings acted on and lives protected. Those results will depend on decisions made well beyond the conference rooms—in national budgets, health plans and local services.
His message to ministers was both urgent and practical. Climate plans need to account for the health consequences of a warming world, and financing decisions should reflect those needs. A policy only matters when it changes what happens on the ground.
That could mean a clinic staying open through a heatwave, safe water remaining available after a flood, or a disease warning reaching health workers in time to respond. COP31’s challenge, Stiell argued, is to move from shared commitments to that kind of protection.
This article paraphrases Simon Stiell’s remarks at the COP31 Health Day Ministerial Roundtable on 9 November 2026. Read the published transcript.
Oluwaseun Musa Lawal is an Editor at REPORTERS ROOM with over eight years of professional journalism experience. He specializes in reporting on politics, climate change, health, and education, while also covering security, economic, and judicial affairs. His work is driven by a commitment to accuracy, balanced reporting, and public-interest journalism.