The fourth session of the Transatlantic Dialogue on Climate and Health organized by PAHO and WHO-Europe addressed how to orient climate policies and actions towards vulnerable groups.
Washington, D.C., July 16, 2025 – The Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, drew attention to the “far-reaching health impacts” of climate change and warned that “people and communities living in vulnerable situations are the most affected, even though they are the least responsible for contributing to climate change.”
Dr. Barbosa opened the fourth session of the Transatlantic Dialogue on Climate and Health, organized by PAHO and the WHO regional office for Europe, and which focused on the impacts of climate and health on situations of vulnerability and policies and strategies with a focus on equity to address these situations. One of the main objectives of these Transatlantic Dialogues is to be able to generate a document for policy makers on strategies and actions as well as success stories of climate policies on health with an equity approach for the 88 countries covered by both regional offices.
“Equity remains at the center of our efforts, and we are committed to ensuring that the health sector plays a leading role in addressing the disproportionate effects of climate change on different communities,” said Dr. Barbosa.
The PAHO Director “highlighted the importance of these Transatlantic Dialogues for countries and stakeholders to share their experiences and explore innovative solutions to ensure that adaptation, mitigation, and resilience efforts explicitly address the health impact of social inequalities.” In this regard, he recalled that, at PAHO's 61st Directing Council, in 2024, Member States approved the Policy on Strengthening Health Sector Action Oriented to Equity in Relation to Climate Change and Health.
The chief of PAHO's Climate Change and Environmental Determinants of Health Unit, Daniel Buss, highlighted the preeminent role that the region of the Americas is playing this year in terms of climate change and health, and mentioned the upcoming Global Conference on Climate and Health 2025, organized by the government of Brazil together with WHO and PAHO, which will be held in Brasilia from July 29 to 31, and the celebration of the COP30 on climate change, to be held in Belém in November.
Abundant scientific evidence
Gabriele Bolte, an expert at the WHO Collaborating Centre on Inequality in Environmental Health at the University of Bremen in Germany, presented abundant scientific evidence on how people in urban, low-income or more marginalized areas are more impacted by heat exposure and are less equipped to face and adapt to these climatic situations. “It is necessary to introduce a cross-cutting discussion on equity in climate change policies, and to increase participation,” she said, while highlighting the importance of the local level for the design and implementation of such strategies and actions.
Ana Diez Roux, Director of the Drexel Urban Health Collaborative, Drexel University (United States) and Head of the Urban Health in Latin America (SALURBAL) Climate project, presented data from a study on climate change and urban health conducted in 363 Latin American cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants.
“The effects of climate change override existing inequalities and that is reflected in health outcomes, such as the difference between life expectancy and causes of death between cities, but also between different areas within the same city,” she said.
To address this situation, she saw the need to design and implement more holistic strategies and policies, which incorporate the equity approach in the development of climate and health policies.
At all levels and with all sectors
Gerardo Sanchez, an expert on environment, health and well-being at the European Environment Agency, drew attention to the fact that there may be policies to address these challenges of integrating equity into climate action that are not well planned, “which then creates pockets of resistance against policies based on good ideas and that are necessary”. He also warned that “public health agencies cannot by themselves protect people and groups in vulnerable situations from the effects of climate change, therefore, actions on climate change and health have to be at every level of government, from the local to the international, and involving all sectors, even the private sector.”
Ashley Lashley, Executive Director of the Ashley Lashley Foundation and a youth climate activist, reflected on “the burden that the effects of climate change are having on young people. Faced with this reality and the threat of the future, young people often feel anxious. There are young people who have lived traumatic experiences due to historical phenomena, “such as Hurricane Beryl last year, the most violent in Barbados, which had a devastating impact.” The hurricane occurred in June and was a category 5, making it the strongest developed in that region of the Atlantic before July.
The event also featured a panel discussion where there was an exchange of experiences and best practices from Brazil, Canada, Italy and Sweden in the implementation of climate and health actions with an equity focus.
