ICN brings strong nursing voice with WHO Climate Report recognition to a challenging COP30

As the 30th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30), 10–21 November 2025 in Belém, Brazil, fell short on delivering essential climate and health protections, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) made the nursing voice heard loud and clear and rallied for change. ICN’s Americas-based Policy Analyst Dr Gill Adynski attended and advocated for the central role of nursing in climate action alongside a strong cohort of global nurse leaders.

Following the Conference, ICN’s CEO Howard Catton contributed to a Global Climate and Health Alliance Press Release critiquing COP30’s failure to make clear and sufficient commitments to phase out fossil fuels, address deforestation, and ensure urgent financing for developing countries to respond to climate impacts on health.

As ICN’s Position Statement makes clear, climate change is the single greatest health threat facing humanity. Without decisive action, the climate crisis could kill an estimated 15.6 million people by 2050, with health impacts costing up to $15.4 trillion, and hitting developing countries and small island nations hardest. Nurses witness the impacts of rising air pollution, increased heat, natural disasters, and climate-sensitive infectious diseases every single day as they treat patients struggling with heatstroke and respiratory illnesses and care for communities devastated by floods, wildfires, and storms. They also experience firsthand how climate pressures strain health systems and compromise their own wellbeing as health professionals.

The World Health Organization (WHO) launched a COP30 report recognizing that nurses are “at the forefront of responding to climate-related health threats” and possess deep insights into environmental impacts on health. The report acknowledges ICN’s vital work promoting sustainability within health care and advocating for disaster preparedness training so that nursing workforces are resilient and ready to lead climate crisis response as well as mitigation.

The WHO report underpins the Belém Health Action Plan launched on COP30 Health Day, a voluntary strategy to improve climate resilience and protect vulnerable populations from the health impacts of high temperatures and extreme weather. ICN is a founding member of the World Health Professions Alliance (WHPA), which issued a statement welcoming the Action Plan’s strong focus on strengthening the health workforce and calling for action to involve health professionals at every stage of implementing its strategies.

ICN’s President, Dr José Luis Cobos Serrano, commented:

“It is clear that the outcomes of COP30 do not match the scale and urgency of the climate health crisis we face and it is more important than ever that we empower nurses as leaders who can drive the transformation towards safe, sustainable, and climate-resilient health systems that protect patients and all those who care for them.

‘In response to the urgency of the climate crisis and its deep relevance to nursing practice, ICN has recently published several climate policy resources, including our Position Statement, Planetary Health Topic Brief, and our Alliance of Student and Early Career Nurses Statement. The WHO COP30 report gives welcome recognition to ICN’s work promoting climate and sustainability in nursing — and most importantly to the essential role of nurses as champions of environmental health. WHO’s report recognizes that nurses are motivated, have unique insights into what is happening on the frontlines, and have a huge part to play in implementing the solutions.

‘We now need the world’s leaders to turn that recognition into action by investing in climate mitigation and adaptation as well as nursing workforce capacity building.”

ICN calls on all countries to take urgent action, including endorsing and implementing the Belém Health Action Plan which directly calls for a strengthened, equitable, and sufficient health workforce.

ICN CEO Howard Catton remarked:

“COP30 needed to be the conference of implementation and action, rather than mere promises, but simply did not secure the political and financial backing or clear commitments to fossil fuel phaseout needed to address our world’s growing climate emergency.

‘With COP facing doubts about its effectiveness in achieving real consensus, it is vital that we remind the world that these global policy decisions have direct implications for health systems and the professionals working within them. When global decision-making falls short on climate, migration or workforce planning, the consequences don’t stay in the negotiating rooms; they turn up in our hospitals, emergency departments and community clinics. Nurses are the first to face that fallout. This outcome makes it even more urgent to spell out why these decisions matter for people’s health and why failing to recognize and support the nursing workforce leaves every community more exposed to climate-driven shocks.

‘Throughout COP30, ICN and nursing leaders delivered strong messages on the human cost of climate inaction and the importance of nurses in implementing solutions.”

ICN at COP30

ICN’s Dr Gill Adynski represented nursing and participated in important health and climate discussions over the course of COP30, supported by a Hillman Scholars In Nursing Innovation grant.

Dr Adynski represented ICN at a joint “Health Leaders Call for Life-Saving Transition Away from Fossil Fuels” press conference, where she made a strong statement:

“We saw during COVID-19, and in every acute disaster from hurricanes to floods to heat waves, that it does not take much to overwhelm a health care system and, in turn, nursing and health workforces. If fossil fuel proliferation continues, our systems will be pushed past their limits. The health impacts will extend beyond direct illness to indirect harms like burned-out nurses, strained health workers, and destabilized and unsafe care. To protect health systems and the people who rely on them, we must stop the proliferation of fossil fuels.”

Dr Adynski attended further sessions on critical climate and health issues including health resilience in small island developing states, climate change and urban health in Latin America, and air pollution and youth-led non-communicable disease advocacy. During COP30, she also strengthened connections with key nursing and health partners and organizations, including the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, the Global Climate and Health Alliance, and a range of nurse leaders from around the globe.

The wider nursing presence at COP30

This year saw a strong turnout of nurse leaders, amplifying the visibility of nursing and the profession’s influence at COP30.

Cara Cook is Deputy Director of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (ANHE) and coordinated the ANHE delegation of nurses at COP30. She works to elevate environmental health as a priority and engage nursing organizations and individual nurses in environmental health advocacy, education, and practical change.

She underscored the importance of nursing representation at COP30:

“As frontline caregivers who witness the health impacts of climate change daily and as a profession that is at the forefront of health solutions, it is critical that the Parties hear from nurses and integrate our input into decisions that impact health on a global scale.”

Dr Sue Anne Bell is a nurse-scientist at the University of Michigan School of Nursing focused on how climate-driven disasters affect the health and well-being of older adults, and on developing evidence-based strategies that strengthen health system resilience in a changing climate. She said:

“Having a nursing presence at COP allows us to bring our trusted knowledge of the ways that climate change harms health to a large audience of policymakers. We are here to help ensure that the groups most affected by climate change are represented in global decision-making.”

Imogen Stringer leads the integration of sustainability across nursing and healthcare education at the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) NHS Trust and works with Healthcare Without Harm. She described her advocacy at COP30:

“Here at COP30 in Belém, I’m highlighting how health is where climate change gets personal — because every heatwave, flood, and polluted day impacts the people we care for. I am advocating for health to be a central metric in climate action and for investment in climate-resilient health systems. I am also amplifying the nursing voice by showcasing how frontline clinicians are leading sustainability efforts.”

Dr Connie Sensor is Chief Representative to the United Nations for the League of Women Voters of the United States and works to make nurses visible as experts, raise awareness of the impact of the climate crisis on human health, to let the world know what nurses can contribute to the conversation.

She reflected:

“Nurses were well-represented at COP30, showing the world our expertise, capacity and agency to contribute to global policy and action in both big discussions and intimate encounters. Think globally and act locally. If your patients come to acute care from an environment that makes them sick and you send them home to that same environment and you do nothing to mitigate or change that environment, what have you done? This is why nurses should care.”

Grace Kistner’s work at the Society of Nurse Scientists, Innovators, Entrepreneurs, and Leaders (SONSIEL) advances healthy environments as well as adaptation and mitigation to protect communities from climate change effects on health. She shared why it is vital for nurses to be at COP:

“Nurses are the largest constituent and most trusted profession with the highest touchpoints in health systems. We can be leaders on the intersection of climate and health, and centre health-in-all-policy in broader civil society with other sectors to innovate solutions for a brighter future.”