The following is a transcript of remarks delivered by UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell during the Health Day Ministerial Roundtable Meeting at COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, on 9 November 2026.
Excellencies, Honourable Ministers,
Colleagues and friends,
A health system can falter by degrees.
A ward grows hotter. The power flickers. A refrigerator holding medicines fails. Floodwater enters a well. A mother in labour finds the road to the clinic cut off.
In these moments, climate change is not measured on a chart.
It can be the difference between life and death.
Health belongs at the heart of climate action.
In a fragmenting world, climate cooperation can deliver stability - by protecting the systems that people rely on.
Countries have already agreed on a clear destination: climate-resilient health services and significantly fewer climate-related illnesses and deaths, particularly in the most vulnerable communities.
Belém gave us a first set of adaptation indicators to track progress and a voluntary Health Action Plan to guide practical work.
Here in Antalya, as we focus on meeting existing commitments, and turning targets and plans into projects, we can place that framework in the service of hospitals, clinics, health workers and families.
We know what failure to adapt looks like.
At the pre-COP in Fiji, I described pregnancy and birth as a new faultline in the climate crisis.
New data from Wellcome showed that almost every maternal-health professional surveyed, across a range of countries, had cared for a pregnant woman or baby whose health they believed had been affected by extreme heat.
You can't 'stay cool' when there is no cool place to go.
Climate risk finds every vulnerability in a health system and widens it:
Turning a power cut, a staff shortage or a long journey to care from strain into crisis.
So our task is practical.
Every national adaptation plan should be able to answer some essential questions.
Can clinics stay open through a heatwave?
Do they have safe water after a flood?
Can health workers spot an outbreak before it spreads?
Will those most at risk get the care they need?
It makes sense for health ministries to be involved in answering those questions from the start, shaping national climate plans, aligning health-sector priorities and monitoring results.
It makes sense for sectoral health plans to reinforce national plans, not sit beside them.
It makes sense for finance to follow need.
We need country-led programmes to build resilient health facilities, powered by clean power and enough clean water, protected by better surveillance and early warnings, with workers trained for the risks that are already here.
The COP30 call for efforts to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035 must translate into real flows, reaching the countries carrying the heaviest burdens with the fewest resources.
And we cannot rely on adaptation alone.
No health system can be made resilient to an endlessly warming world.
We must drive the transition away from fossil fuels, fast and fairly, tripling renewables and doubling energy efficiency.
Reliable clean power keeps clinics running. But cleaner air keeps people out of them.
The Antalya Health Accelerator Initiative can close the gap between a plan agreed and a patient protected, bringing leadership, cooperation and finance behind country priorities through national systems, not parallel ones.
The next Global Stocktake gives us a clock. When countries report what they have implemented and achieved, let the story be one of clinics strengthened, health workers equipped, warnings acted upon, and lives saved.
Honourable ministers, you are essential to that story - driving the change that leads to real-world outcomes.
Ensuring that health is embedded in how climate plans are designed, financing decisions are made and progress is measured.
Friends,
Health is where climate policy becomes human reality.
The medicine kept cold. The ward kept open. The outbreak caught early. The mother and child brought safely home.
Here in Antalya, let us roll up our sleeves and deliver on the commitments we've made: turning cooperation into protection, and protection into lives saved.
Thank you.
