Climate Change and Health

The Challenge

Climate change is the largest global health challenge of the 21st century. It represents a profound threat to the Global Fund’s mission to defeat HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria, save lives and build a healthier, safer, more equitable world for all.

While the threat of the climate crisis is universal, the speed and severity of the impacts are not.  Countries that are the least responsible for carbon emissions are often the most vulnerable to its effects and the least able to adapt. They are often countries with a high disease burden, where the Global Fund has made significant investments in HIV, TB and malaria programs and health and community systems.

Malaria is one of the most climate-sensitive diseases. Temperature changes, shifting rainfall patterns and extreme weather events are affecting the spread of malaria. Climate change is expanding mosquito habitats to higher elevation areas and making the malaria transmission season longer.

Climate change also jeopardizes our mission to end AIDS and TB. Climate disasters and extreme weather events are causing people to become displaced. This leads to disruptions in health service delivery and essential diagnosis and treatment services, which in turn can lead to increased disease transmission and drug resistance.

Compounding these challenges, climate change impacts the Global Fund’s mission to reduce health inequities by worsening existing inequalities and vulnerabilities of people affected by HIV, TB and malaria.

Our Response

The Global Fund is committed to promoting low-carbon, climate-resilient health systems and addressing the impacts of climate change on the fight against HIV, TB and malaria. We support countries that are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change – 71% of our new investments (2023-2025) will go to the 50 most climate-vulnerable countries.

We support countries to respond to the impact of extreme weather events on the diseases we fight by providing rapid, flexible emergency funding. We also invest over US$1.5 billion a year to strengthen health systems to be more climate-resilient and better prepared for pandemic threats.

For example, the Global Fund supports countries to digitize their health systems and health records so that they are not lost when a climate disaster hits. We also invest in community health workers so that they can reach people in the most remote locations. Engaging with and empowering communities and civil society is crucial to understanding context-specific climate risks to health. Communities and civil society are the key to identifying and scaling up locally led climate solutions to build health systems and services that can withstand the increasing impacts of climate change.

Fighting deadly infectious diseases must go hand-in-hand with responding to climate change. This is our fight. We won’t stop until the job is finished.