World Health Organization / Wellcome Trust strategic collaboration on Climate change and Health 2024-2028

The World Health Organization and Wellcome Trust are joining forces to make climate change the central focus of global health policy for the next four years. This matters because climate change is already killing people through heatwaves, infectious disease spread, and collapsing health systems, yet health considerations remain sidelined in international climate negotiations. The collaboration fills a gap: there is no coordinated global framework to measure how climate policies affect human health, or to help countries access the climate finance needed to protect vulnerable populations. If successful, the partnership will produce three concrete outputs. First, new global research assessments will quantify the health benefits of phasing out fossil fuels—showing, for example, how cleaner air reduces hospital admissions. Second, a standardised indicator framework will track every country’s progress on climate-resilient health systems, from emergency preparedness to hospital infrastructure. Third, WHO will train health officials and provide technical support so that countries can apply for climate funding—money that currently flows mostly to energy projects, not hospitals. The project is not fundamental science; it is an operational and policy collaboration. Its impact will be measured in whether national health systems become more resilient, and whether health arguments finally carry weight in decisions about energy, transport, and urban planning.