Extreme heat making pregnancy a ‘new fault line’ in climate crisis

FIJI, 6 OCTOBER 2026 —

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell warned on Monday that pregnancy and childbirth have become a “new fault line in the global climate crisis” as extreme heat worsens, urging countries to embed maternal and newborn health into their climate plans.

Nearly all respondents had cared for a pregnant woman or baby whose health they considered had been affected by extreme heat.

“Behind those numbers are human stories: an expectant mother’s journey to clinic delayed by dangerous heat; a midwife working through unsafe temperatures; a newborn needing specialist care,” Stiell said. He noted that rising temperatures are increasingly linked to premature birth, stillbirth, low birth weight and maternal complications. While no one is immune, he stressed that risks and impacts are not shared equally.

People 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.” “‘Staying cool’ is simply not an option when there is no cool place to go,” he said. “A safe birth is already too often shaped by geography, income and access to care. Without action, extreme heat will widen that injustice.”

For small island states and other nations that “did practically nothing to create this climate crisis,” Stiell said the findings underscore the need for support at scale. He called for the tripling of adaptation finance agreed at COP30 in Belém to be delivered and for nations to work with the whole financial system to make $1.3 trillion a year for developing countries a reality.

“What is not named in a plan is too often not funded, not measured and not protected,” he said. “Harm that is not counted is too easily ignored.”

Stiell commended the COP31 Presidency of Türkiye and Australia’s President of Negotiations for making health a key priority, building on Brazil’s work last year. The pre-COP ministerial meeting in Fiji marks the first formal step toward the Antalya conference, where health is expected to feature prominently in the negotiation agenda for the first time at this level.

The Wellcome survey provides the first multi-continent snapshot of frontline health workers’ experience of heat-related maternal risk, giving negotiators a quantitative basis for integrating reproductive health into adaptation targets. Previous COP cycles have treated health as a cross-cutting theme but rarely anchored it in specific funding mechanisms or nationally determined contributions.

“A changing climate must never be accepted as a reason pregnancy and birth become less safe,” Stiell said. “A newborn’s healthy start must never depend on a family’s ability to escape the heat.”

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