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Health and medical leaders representing millions of doctors, nurses, and students worldwide used the ongoing 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change platform to issue a stark warning: transitioning away from fossil fuels is now one of the most urgent and effective public health interventions available.
At a joint press conference titled “Health Leaders Call for Life-Saving Transition Away from Fossil Fuels,” the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), the International Council of Nurses (ICN), the Global Climate and Health Alliance (GCHA), and the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA) urged governments to support a global commitment to Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels (TAFF), calling it essential to saving lives, protecting communities, and preventing the collapse of overstretched health systems.
They arrived with a unified message: fossil fuels are not just a climate threat—they are directly harming human health at every stage of life.
The evidence, they said, is overwhelming. Air pollution from fossil fuels contributes to more than seven million premature deaths annually. Intensifying heatwaves are claiming lives and livelihoods. Climate-driven disasters such as wildfires, floods, and storms are pushing health systems to breaking point.
They highlighted new research from Cradle to Grave: The Health Toll of Fossil Fuels and the Imperative for a Just Transition, which documents the extensive health damage caused across the entire fossil fuel life cycle. Pregnant women exposed to fossil fuel pollution face higher risks of pre-term birth, low birth weight, and congenital abnormalities. Children suffer increased asthma, respiratory infections, and developmental impacts. Adults face elevated risks of heart disease, cancers, lung disorders, kidney damage, and neurological conditions. Even after extraction sites and refineries shut down, toxic pollutants continue to poison soil, water, and air for decades.
The burden is not evenly shared. Fossil fuel impacts disproportionately fall on Indigenous peoples, low-income communities, frontline workers—including health workers—and neighbourhoods near industrial sites. As climate impacts grow, disadvantaged communities, with fewer resources and already overstretched health services, face the steepest health tolls. Speakers underscored that without a just transition, these inequities will worsen.
Momentum, however, is building behind TAFF, with Brazil and a growing coalition of countries pushing for a justice-centered commitment. Health leaders argued that transitioning away from fossil fuels is essential for maintaining functional health systems and preventing millions of avoidable illnesses and deaths.
“Every year of delay means more asthma attacks, more cardiovascular emergencies, more cancers, and more premature deaths, all of them preventable,” said Joe Vipond, past president of CAPE. “Transitioning away from fossil fuels isn’t just good climate policy: It’s life-saving health policy.”
Courtney Howard, vice-chair of GCHA, recalled the 2023 wildfire crisis in Canada: “Smoke from these fires circled the planet—exposing 354 million people to increased air pollution leading to over 82,000 premature deaths globally. There is no safety in a fossil-fuelled status quo. We must drive toward a clean-energy future with the same commitment we use in CPR—push hard, push fast, don’t stop.”
Youth leaders echoed the alarm. Gustavo Henrique Nicoletti Dalle Cort of IFMSA warned that warming will shape entire medical careers: “Transitioning away from fossil fuels is the only option, to give us a future in which we can realistically keep our patients healthy.”
From the nursing front lines, Gillian Adynski of ICN cautioned that continuing fossil fuel expansion will destabilise health systems: “If fossil fuel proliferation continues, our systems will be pushed past their limits.”
Health leaders called on governments to deliver four outcomes at COP30: a science-based roadmap to phase out fossil fuels, a rapid and just transition for affected workers and communities, integration of health evidence into all climate decisions, and strengthened, climate-resilient health systems.
Their message was unequivocal: phasing out fossil fuels is no longer just an environmental priority—it is the foundation for protecting global public health.