Climate change is bad for health – we will all pay the price for retreating from the battle to ensure universal coverage
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3 min read
The COP30 summit made one truth painfully clear: those people least responsible for the climate crisis are paying the highest price in the form of worse health and lower survival rates.
Unless global action matches that injustice, more and more people will struggle to access the full range of quality health services they need, when and where they need them, and without financial hardship.
The health threats of climate change can be seen in many areas, from air pollution and heat stress to antimicrobial resistance and even mental health. Climate shocks are fuelling disease outbreaks, overwhelming medical clinics and disrupting supply chains. This is pushing already fragile health systems past breaking point. As a vet, I see every day how human, animal and environmental health are deeply connected, and climate stress continues to drive disease risks across all three.
At the same time, countries are being forced to divert scarce resources away from health. When governments of lower- and middle-income countries spend more on debt repayments than on doctors, nurses or nutrition, good-quality healthcare stops being a possibility and becomes merely a slogan.
More than half of the world’s population lack access to essential health services, and recent analysis by Results UK shows that the 16 countries most affected by food crises now spend 1.9 times more on external debt payments than on health. How can any health system deliver for its people under those conditions?
The UK’s retreat from aid has deepened the strain. I recently led a debate in Parliament protesting the cuts to the Global Fund, and have expressed my dismay at the cessation of the Fleming Fund that was helping tackle drug resistance. This is not just charity. This is global health security, preventing outbreaks before they spread, reducing suffering, and strengthening healthcare systems in some of the world’s most fragile regions.
If antibiotic resistance is surging in one part of the world, it will reach our hospitals
Together, these pressures, including climate shocks, rising debt and shrinking aid, translate into very real human consequences: missed vaccinations, untreated chronic conditions, overstretched clinics, a steep rise in superbugs, and women and children losing services they rely on for survival.
Disease does not respect borders. A threat anywhere in the world is a threat to the UK. If polio still exists anywhere, it is still our problem. If antibiotic resistance is surging in one part of the world, it will reach our hospitals. If a new pandemic emerges in a distant country, it will be on our doorstep faster than ever before.
The UK can help countries keep more of what they’re already owed by championing global tax cooperation, closing loopholes, and ensuring multinationals pay their fair share. When revenues stop leaking out, countries gain the fiscal space they need to fund healthcare sustainably.
The people closest to the impact, including local health workers, community leaders and civil society, know what actually works in their systems. They must be partners in decision-making, not just recipients of funding.
Universal health coverage isn’t a distant goal – it’s a lifeline. And right now, it needs defending. The UK can choose to retreat, or it can help build a world where climate shocks don’t become health emergencies, and where health emergencies don’t become preventable deaths, by backing fairer financing and the frontline expertise that makes health systems work.
This is a question of national security, moral responsibility and economic opportunity.
Danny Chambers is the Liberal Democrat MP for Winchester
