Extreme heat putting pregnant women, newborns at growing risk: UN climate chief

Extreme heat is putting pregnant women and newborns at growing risk as the climate crisis intensifies, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell has warned.

Stiell made the remarks on Monday at the launch of the Birthright campaign on the opening day of the Pre-COP ministerial meeting in Fiji, the Hindustan Times reports.

“The picture is clear and very disturbing. As extreme heat worsens, pregnancy and birth are now a new faultline in the global climate crisis, and one which is potentially fatal,” he said.

Stiell cited findings from a survey of 1,000 maternal health professionals across Australia, Brazil, India, the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe.

The survey found that 73 percent had seen an increase in heat-related cases or complications affecting pregnant women over the past five years.

It was commissioned by Wellcome as part of the Birthright campaign, which aims to protect women, babies, health systems and health workers from extreme heat.

Nearly all respondents, or 98 percent, said they had cared for a pregnant woman whose health they believed had been affected by extreme heat, while 99 percent said they had cared for a baby affected by heat.

More than four in five, or 81 percent, said they were concerned or very concerned that rising heat would increasingly threaten maternal, foetal and newborn health without further action.

Wellcome said a 1°C rise in temperature was associated with a 5 percent increase in premature births and a 7 percent increase in gestational diabetes.

Stiell said exposure to extreme heat during pregnancy was increasingly associated with premature birth, stillbirth, low birth weight and maternal complications, with newborns also facing heightened risks.

“Someone working outdoors, living in unregulated housing, travelling far to a clinic, or relying on facilities without water, power or cooling, cannot be protected by advice alone,” he said.

“‘Staying cool’ is simply not an option when there is no cool place to go.”

“A safe birth is already too often shaped by geography, income and access to care. Without action, extreme heat will widen that injustice,” he added.

Stiell called for pregnancy and newborn care to be incorporated into climate adaptation and heat planning, alongside stronger alert systems, training, safer health facilities and better measurement of heat-related harm.

He also urged countries to deliver on the tripling of adaptation finance agreed at COP30 in Brazil and work across the financial system to make $1.3 trillion a year available to developing countries.

Without that funding, he warned, the climate-health divide could become “another deep chasm of climate-driven suffering, inequality and injustice”.

Stiell also pointed to the run of record global temperatures in recent years and warned that continued fossil fuel use was intensifying the risks posed by extreme heat.

The Pre-COP meeting runs from Oct 5 to 8 and is being co-hosted by Fiji and Australia, with a leaders’ event in Tuvalu. Ministers and delegates from more than 50 countries are preparing for COP31 in Antalya, Turkiye.

COP31 President Murat Kurum said: “Promises do not hold back the sea or shield homes from the fire. Only delivery can save us.”

Before the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, the world was on course for around 4°C of warming, while renewables accounted for 23 percent of global electricity generation. Projected warming is now about 2.6°C, while renewables supply more than 34 percent of electricity, according to International Energy Agency figures cited by the Australian COP31 team.