Elevating Health in the 2025 NDC Campaign

National climate plans are being rewritten this year, and this grant puts health at the centre of that process. Countries submit their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—the pledges that shape global climate action—ahead of the COP30 summit. Historically, these plans have focused on emissions targets and energy infrastructure, with health treated as a secondary concern. This project addresses that gap by working to embed health considerations across every part of the NDC campaign: the data and analysis that inform the pledges, the diplomatic negotiations, the public messaging, and the grassroots mobilisation that pressures governments to act. If successful, this work could shift how governments frame climate ambition. Instead of treating climate action as a trade-off against economic growth, policymakers might begin to see it as a direct investment in public health—reducing heat-related deaths, cutting respiratory illness from air pollution, and strengthening healthcare systems against climate shocks. The campaign aims to raise the level of debate and awareness so that health becomes a core metric for judging whether an NDC is ambitious enough, not an afterthought.