Pakistan health experts demand climate-proof hospitals and heat plans after Lancet Countdown warning
Pakistani health experts have called for climate-proof hospitals, early warning systems and heat action plans after the 2026 Lancet Countdown report urged that climate change be declared a global health emergency.
Health and environmental experts in Pakistan have called for urgent investment in climate-resilient healthcare after the 2026 Lancet Countdown report warned that the health damage from climate change is growing faster than the world's response, and urged governments to treat the crisis as a global health emergency.
The report, produced by 146 researchers from more than 100 institutions and led by University College London in collaboration with the World Health Organization, found that average annual heat-related deaths have risen by nearly 36 per cent since the Paris Agreement entered into force. In 2023 alone, heat was linked to a record 710,000 deaths worldwide, with more than 70 per cent of that burden attributed to human-caused climate change, while heat-related economic losses reached an estimated $1.07 trillion in 2025.
Former Punjab health minister Professor Dr Javed Akram told Dawn that Pakistan's disaster response remained "too little, too late", pointing to the devastating 2022 floods, which displaced communities, damaged healthcare infrastructure, disrupted supplies of essential medicines and raised the risk of waterborne disease and malnutrition. Germanwatch's Climate Risk Index 2025 ranked Pakistan as the country most affected by extreme weather in 2022.
Experts at the Islamabad discussion demanded climate-proof hospitals that can keep functioning through floods and heatwaves, reliable early warning systems for extreme weather, and formal heat action plans for major cities, arguing that health must sit at the centre of climate policy rather than being treated as an afterthought.
The report lands days before the COP31 climate summit opens in Antalya, Türkiye, on 9 November, where Pakistan is expected to press wealthier nations for more adaptation finance. The authors said clean energy investment reached a record $2.1 trillion in 2025, but warned that progress on protecting health was still too slow and too small.
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