The Nexus of Adaptation and Health Finance

The climate crisis and its impacts are causing severe consequences around the world. Countries are affected by direct impacts through extreme weather events as well as more indirect ones through changing the conditions that influence disease, food, water, and air quality. It is estimated that climate change could result in 14.5–15.6 million deaths between 2026 and 2050. As outlined by the Lancet Countdown Report 2025 human health is already severely affected. Heat, the spread of vector-borne diseases or physical injuries from extreme weather events – health systems across the world are increasingly experiencing those consequences. At the same time, health infrastructure itself must be adapted to these impacts. Extreme weather events and heat can place health systems under significant stress, heightening the risk of service disruptions during emergencies or creating dangerous environments for persons in need of medical assistance. 

This briefing provides a state of play of adaptation finance in the health sector using Climate Funds Update data (2004 – 2024) and an analysis of 67 National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) submitted by September 2025, it provides an overview of multilateral climate fund investments and country‑level adaptation and health financing needs expressed through health sector related budgets in country NAPs.

Key findings

• Multilateral climate funds have invested about 173 million USD in health sector adaptation since 2004: roughly 0.5% of total climate finance and 2% of adaptation finance. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) accounts for over 70% of these health investments
• Geographic allocation is highly uneven: approximately two‑thirds of health adaptation funding went to East Asia & Pacific, one‑quarter to Sub‑Saharan Africa, and none to South Asia via country‑specific projects—despite projections that these regions will bear the greatest health burdens from climate impacts.
• NAPs increasingly prioritize health: 87% of NAPs mention health sector objectives, and 39% include a dedicated health budget. However, the translation of identified health risks into specific, budgeted activities is often incomplete.
• Aggregate health sector needs expressed in NAPs total 2.54 billion USD: less than 0.1% of these needs have been covered by multilateral climate funds to date.

Gaps, opportunities and recommendations

• Improve delivery of and access to funding: As countries develop their funding pipelines for adaptation and health, international funding mechanisms can play a greater role in improving access to climate and health finance. Clarifying investment priorities and facilitating more direct access to international funds will be key to creating public health systems adapted to the 21^st Century and saving lives.
• Channel funding to country priorities: As country priorities are further defined and updated (e.g., through NDCs, NAPs and HNAPs), multilateral climate funds can work together to better integrate targeted investment on adaptation and health.
• Intensifying cross-sectoral collaboration: The nexus of adaptation and health finance needs to be addressed from both sides – the climate side as well as the health side. To this end intensifying cross-sectoral as well as cross-organisational collaboration is crucial.
• Use GGA indicators: The proposed list of 100 GGA indicators published recently includes 10 indicators specifically on health appearing to be ambitious. Finalising those indicators and keeping the ambitious pathway at COP30 is key for scaling up adaptation and health finance.