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. 

As highlighted by the 2025 Lancet Countdown Report on Health and Climate Change, 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. The Adaptation Gap Report 2025 finds that 310–365 billion USD for developing countries by 2035 would be needed annually to deliver on the needs to adapt to the impacts of climate change. While global attention to the adaptation and health nexus is rising - underscored by WHO’s COP29 call that “climate financing is health financing” and embodied by the upcoming Belem Health Action Plan - current adaptation financing for health remains markedly insufficient relative to needs and in light of the gravity of the problem facing societies around the world. 

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.