Ahead of COP30, experts from the Pathfinder Initiative highlight how health-centred climate action can pave the way to a more sustainable future for all.
Key decisions are set to be made at COP30 which will determine how the world moves to a low-carbon and climate-resilient future that leaves no one behind.
As leaders gather in Belém, Brazil for the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference, the concept of a just transition will be high on the agenda.
Among the key areas of focus will be advancing the Just Transitions Work Programme (JTWP), established at COP28, which aims to ensure that the shift to a net-zero, climate-resilient future is fair and takes into account different country contexts and development priorities.
During a recent event on climate and health at the World Health Summit, hosted by the Pathfinder Initiative and partners, COP30 Special Envoy Dr Ethel Maciel underscored that climate justice and equity must be at the core of the upcoming negotiations. The JTWP is key to achieving progress across all areas, including goals relating to climate mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, and finance.
Health is at the heart of a just transition. Climate change is affecting the health of people worldwide, but countries in the Global South, low-income communities, women and children, older people, people with disabilities, Indigenous communities, migrants and other marginalised groups are hit the hardest by climate impacts and often have limited resources to respond and recover. Certain populations are also more vulnerable to being left behind in the transition through job losses or poorly planned interventions. For example, rapid decarbonisation of the energy sector must be balanced with measures to provide social protection for workers and communities affected, including adequate compensation, assistance and re-training. Support and incentives for agricultural workers are also important to assist them with necessary changes to food production methods and diets to ensure a just transition towards more sustainable food systems.
Accelerating a just transition is not only vital to reduce climate risks, but also an opportunity to create healthier, fairer societies. Evidence from the Pathfinder Initiative shows that cutting greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors can bring major benefits to health through cleaner air, healthier diets, more active lifestyles, and access to green space. Well-designed climate policies and actions can also bring socioeconomic opportunities that support improved health and wellbeing, including through job creation.
The fourth dialogue under the JTWP, which took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in September 2025 as part of Climate Week-2 2025: Dialogues for Ambition and Implementation, focused on: “Just energy transition pathways and holistic approaches to just transitions including socioeconomic, workforce, social protection and other dimensions, based on nationally defined development priorities”. The Pathfinder Initiative responded to the call for input to the dialogue, highlighting the health dimensions of a just transition in the energy sector and across all sectors. The submission, titled ‘Maximising the health and equity benefits of climate action for a just transition’, emphasises that health must be embedded in the JTWP, and in national climate plans including Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plans and Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategies, to maximise health gains and minimise potential trade-offs or unintended consequences of transitioning to net zero. A recent comment by experts from the Global Climate and Health Alliance and Pathfinder Initiative, published in the BMJ ahead of COP30, reiterates the importance of integrating health into NDCs and having clear plans for implementation.
There are large disparities in emissions between countries, with the world’s largest 20 economies accounting for about 77 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2023. As highlighted in the Pathfinder Initiative submission, a just transition must address global inequalities by bringing down the emissions of the highest emitters as a priority.
In addition, climate finance for mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage currently falls significantly short of the amount needed to protect and promote health. The recent UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) adaptation gap report estimates that developing nations will need more than $310 billion annually between now and 2035 to address climate impacts, while international public adaptation finance flows to developing countries were just $26 billion in 2023. Adequate finance, including scale up of grant-based public finance from developed countries to developing countries, is a prerequisite for a just transition.
Holistic systems approaches that integrate climate mitigation and adaptation strategies, and are tailored to national and local contexts, are also crucial to enabling just and healthy transitions. Nature-based solutions (NbS) provide an example of how climate mitigation and adaptation strategies can be integrated. Evidence from the Pathfinder Initiative shows that NbS such as tree-based interventions (environmental actions where trees are a central feature) in low and middle-income rural settings have significant potential to improve health, wellbeing and livelihoods, while protecting and restoring ecosystems. However, community needs must be central in the design and implementation of these interventions to achieve benefits for a just transition. Case studies on the Pathfinder Initiative Climate & Health Evidence Bank, such as a community-led intervention in Indonesia to address lack of healthcare access as a potential driver of illegal logging, and the Ntakata Mountains Forest Protection Programme in Tanzania, show how community-centred solutions work in practice and the scale of the benefits for people and the environment.
Recommendations for COP30 from the global health and climate community highlight that at the conference, parties must agree on a global mechanism for just transitions – the proposed Belém Action Mechanism for a Global Just Transition – to facilitate cooperation, mobilise finance, and inform the implementation of just transition strategies. An accompanying set of principles for a just transition should also be discussed and adopted at COP30 to guide the mechanism, building on key pillars outlined at the Bonn Climate Change Conference (SB62). These principles must foreground the right to health and to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.
Health-promoting policies and actions are essential to achieving a just transition. Just transition pathways should be both designed to maximise health benefits and evaluated for their impacts on health and equity. As world leaders, negotiators, and representatives from business, finance, academia, civil society and Indigenous communities gather in Belém, discussions and outcomes should be informed by the evidence: health-centred climate action is urgently needed to pave the way to a more sustainable future for all.
Resources
Read the Pathfinder Initiative submission to the fourth dialogue of the Just Transitions Work Programme
Read the Pathfinder Initiative Just Transitions policy brief
Read the expert comment in the BMJ on health in NDCs