Health Gets About 1% of Climate Finance, Researcher Tells COP31, as Opening Day Opens With a Money Fight

Since delegates began arriving in Antalya for the two-week COP31 conference, which runs Nov. 9 to 20, the first day has been defined less by science than by a fight over who pays. Health, the theme of Monday's program, showed how thin the money is.

"Health financing is only a very, very minor part, with 1% of overall climate finance spending," said Dennis Tänzler, executive director of Adelphi Research, a think tank focused on environmental and development policy. He spoke Monday, Nov. 9, at the conference.

The World Health Organization says between 3.3 and 3.6 billion people live in areas highly vulnerable to climate change.

The health numbers

The 2026 Lancet Countdown report estimates heat was associated with 710,000 deaths worldwide in 2023, with about 71% of them attributed to human-caused climate change. Stella Hartinger, the Lancet Countdown's regional director for Latin America, said 2023 was not the hottest year and that the toll will keep rising.

Europe's summer is already a data point. The UN's provisional estimates put excess mortality across Europe above 30,000 over the summer, including roughly 16,000 excess deaths during the June 22 to 28 heatwave alone. Other estimates are higher: scientists cited by CNN put the summer toll above 50,000 and say even that is likely an undercount. The figures are estimates built on different methods, and they do not match.

Brazil's Daniel Porcel of the Talanoa Institute pointed to his country's universal public health system, known as SUS. Brazil approved a national adaptation plan last year with 16 sectoral plans, one for health. Porcel said that without more investment, hospitals, clinics and staff in remote communities will not be ready for extreme weather.

A late start and an agenda fight

The opening ceremony began an hour and a half late, with no explanation given. Negotiators had been locked in talks late Sunday over developing countries' demands to put climate finance on the official agenda.

Jasper Inventor, head of Greenpeace's COP31 delegation, said developed countries took a hard line on whether to include the climate finance work programme agreed at COP30 in Brazil. It was ultimately included.

African countries wanted the tripling of adaptation finance as its own agenda item. That did not happen.

The promise itself is on record. COP30 committed to triple adaptation finance to $120 billion by 2035, but set no mechanism to deliver it, according to a policy analysis from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. Talks in June ended without agreement on how to do it.

Wealthy countries signal limits

Poorer nations say current funding falls short. Developed countries, which historically emitted the most, have provided support under UN agreements, and the dispute is over how much more is owed.

A senior European Union official warned last week that there would be no political will for extra funding pledges at COP31. Observers expect few breakthroughs as governments deal with an oil price shock and geopolitical tension tied to the U.S. war with Iran and Russia's war in Ukraine.

That is taxpayer money in the hands of finance ministers who are already stretched, and the conference has no enforcement tool to make them pay.

The U.S. will not be in the room. The Trump administration announced last year that it would withdraw from the UN climate negotiations, and the State Department says it is sending no one to Turkey, NPR reported. President Trump has called climate change a hoax and a scam. The U.S. is the world's second-largest emitter after China.

What the conference leaders say they will try

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement that "we have entered a new age of climate extremes." The World Meteorological Organization, in a report released Monday, said extreme weather will persist into 2027 as a very strong El Niño builds. WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said heatwaves, cyclones and rainstorms are intensifying faster than historical baselines anticipated.

UN climate chief Simon Stiell told the opening plenary, "Progress is nowhere near far enough or fair enough." He added that no single conference can bridge the gap between science and reality.

COP31 is run under an unusual split. Turkey's environment minister, Murat Kurum, holds the presidency, and Australia's climate minister, Chris Bowen, oversees negotiations. Bowen said he will develop a presidency-led decision throughout the talks rather than waiting for the final days, aimed at practical measures to speed up climate action.

He acknowledged the countries disagree on the value of such a decision and how far it should go.

Whether finance ministers will put a number and a delivery mechanism behind the $120 billion adaptation pledge, and whether any of it reaches health systems, will be tested over the next 11 days. Bowen's presidency-led decision is the first vehicle to watch.