From Baku to Belém: Mental health at COP29 and onwards

Climate finance

COP29 was widely described as the “finance COP”, with countries meeting for the first time after more than 15 years to discuss a new climate financing goal, the so-called New Collective Quantified Goal, which countries agreed to establish by 2025 when adopting the Paris Agreement. Developed countries (using the country distinction used by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) had asked for 1.3 USD trillion a year in climate finance and for that finance to be accessible, grants-based, and flexible. In the end, however, countries agreed for developed countries to “take the lead” in raising at least 300 billion USD by 2035 and on a looser call to raise 1.3 trillion USD by 2035 from a range of resources, including private finance. This outcome has been criticised by most developing countries who have considered it insufficient to meet their demands. An inadequate climate finance goal will likely put millions of lives on the line, as physical and mental health cannot be protected unless climate action is appropriately financed. 

Mitigation 

COP28 included an historical reference to transition away from fossil fuels as part of its “global stocktake”, that is, the process to assess the global response to the climate crisis every five years. This was the first time these words appeared in a formal COP outcome after nearly 30 years of negotiations. However, at COP29, countries failed to agree on where and how to acknowledge this in the negotiated documents. No mention of the energy transition was reflected in the mitigation work programme, the programme established to scale up mitigation ambition and implementation. Given that the burning of fossil fuels is the main driver of climate change and is the ultimate cause of its negative impacts on physical and mental health, not agreeing the next steps on the transition away from fossil fuels represents dangerous backsliding on the commitments made in 2023. 

Adaptation

One of the key entry points for physical and mental health within climate negotiations is represented by the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA). The GGA aims to provide countries with a clear framework and targets to guide adaptation efforts globally. Eleven global targets have been identified as part of the GGA ranging from water and food to infrastructure and heritage. One of these 11 targets is health. Indicators are now being identified ahead of COP30 in order to track how progress is being made against these targets, an exercise being led by experts across the world. During this COP29, experts received more detailed guidance on the selection of indicators and the GGA was made a standing item on the agenda. In addition, cross-cutting indicators related to education and the health of children and young people were also recommended for inclusion. Earlier this year, we contributed to a joint submission led by the Global Climate and Health Alliance which included a list of possible mental health indicators. Going forward it is essential that the selected GGA indicators should track information which is vital for both physical and mental health.  

The Health Pavilion at COP29 (Photo: UNFCCC)

Loss and damage

At COP29, the World Bank was confirmed as the host of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), a fund agreed at COP28 aimed at supporting vulnerable developing countries to manage economic and non-economic loss and damages resulting from climate change stressors such as extreme weather events. As the fund is operationalized, we endorse WHO’s suggestion in its COP29 special report on climate change and health to create standardized methodologies for measuring and addressing non-economic loss and damage, including mental health impacts. 

Mental health across COP29

At the beginning of COP29, we contributed to publishing a perspective in Nature Mental Health on the need and opportunities for integrating mental health in global climate negotiations. In this article we highlighted how, historically, mental health stakeholders have represented only 0.99% of the overall health community attending COPs. This is starting to change, with increasing recognition being paid to mental health at COPs. For example, the COP28 Declaration on Climate and Health, endorsed by more than 150 countries, includes an explicit reference to mental health. At this year’s COP29, we saw multiple events that touched on mental health across the agenda and mental health being more thoroughly integrated in the climate and health discourse. Mental health was covered in events focusing on gender, children and young people, and urban planning, among many other topics. We contributed to an UNFCCC side event on children’s mental health where we called for increased attention to be paid to this topic within climate policy, given a recent analysis in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health showing how 0 out of 160 countries’ national adaptation policies included a reference to children’s mental health.

UNFCCC side event on children’s mental health

Given the commitment as part of the Baku COP Presidencies Continuity Coalition for Climate and Health to ensure sustained action on climate and health at COPs and the call for future COP Presidencies to consider health, it’s imperative that mental health receives as much attention as physical health in the future. In particular, we are joining the Global Climate and Health Alliance in calling for biannual Ministerial meetings on climate and health to take place at future COPs, starting from next year’s COP30. These should represent a dedicated forum for countries to update on progress in the implementation of the COP28 Declaration on Climate and Health, for both physical and mental health. 

The road to COP30

Next year’s COP30 will take place in Belém, Brazil. Ahead of COP30, countries are submitting their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). NDCs are countries’ self-defined national climate pledges detailing what they will do to help meet the global goal to pursue 1.5°C, adapt to climate impacts, and ensure sufficient finance to support these efforts. In the last iteration of NDCs, only 3% of countries included a reference to mental health (versus 28% including references to vector-borne diseases, for example). Ahead of COP30, we must call on countries to ensure mental health is appropriately included within NDCs and for the submission of ambitious NDCs in line with the 1.5° Paris Agreement goal in order to protect physical and mental health. The World Health Organization released a report during COP29 on quality criteria for integrating health into NDCs which includes multiple recommendations on how to integrate mental health in NDCs. Going forward United for Global Mental Health plans on continuing to raise the profile of mental health within climate and health discussions, for example in the upcoming WHO Second Conference on Air Pollution and Health or during the High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases and Mental Health, to ensure that mental health is integrated across discussions at COP30 and onwards. 

The closing plenary at COP29 presenting next year’s COP30 in Belém, Brazil (Photo: UNFCCC)