The Global Climate and Health Alliance has censured developed countries for “blocking” the Global Goal on Adaptation negotiations and adaptation finance meant to safeguard the lives of people worldwide.
The criticism is the crux of a statement issued Friday on the heels of the 2026 Bonn Climate Change Conference in Germany, a mid-year session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The health community said during this week’s negotiations, developed countries seemed unable to recall their commitment to tripling climate funding by 2025, a pledge they made at COP30 in Brazil.
“There can simply be no health without finance for adaptation action,” said Jess Beagley, Policy Lead at GCHA. “The same applies for wider climate finance, including for mitigation or loss and damage.”
Established under Article 7.1 of the 2015 Paris Agreement, the GGA seeks to elevate climate adaptation to the same level of political priority and urgency as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Article 9, paragraph 1 of the pact asserts that developed countries shall provide financial resources to assist developing nations regarding mitigation and adaptation “in continuation of their existing obligations.”
Beagley argues that developing countries already bearing the health shocks and wider burdens of climate impacts are incapable of executing national climate plans without public grant-based assistance.
“Developed countries have hindered implementation and blocked progress across negotiations by failing to refer to climate finance,” the advocate protested.
This impediment, according to Beagley, is compounded by the clout of harmful polluting industries such as fossil fuels, contributing to a lack of progress on outcomes relating to reduction and science.
Warning that the climate change problem cannot be resolved without a clear understanding of evidence, Dr. Nova Tebbe, a researcher, wants more power for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The public health policy expert called for strengthening evidence by/about developing and vulnerable countries, and “protecting IPCC findings and recommendations from inappropriate influence.”
Developed countries face criticism for ‘blocking’ climate finance