Europe is paying to make itself sick – and the health bill proves it

Europe is paying €444 billion a year to subsidize fossil fuels. It is costing 1,700 lives a day due to air pollution from burning them. And it is paying again in healthcare costs to treat the consequences.

This is a liability that compounds every year we delay action on climate and health. The Pan-European Commission on Climate and Health – which I convened, and which delivered its Call to Action this week – has produced the roadmap for ending it. Here is what leaders must do now.

The evidence is unambiguous. In 2024, approximately 63,000 people died from heat-related causes across Europe. Climate change was responsible for nearly 70% of summer heat deaths in 854 European cities in 2025. Heat exposure alone cost 640 billion labour hours globally last year – the equivalent of more than 300 million full-time jobs. At 3 degrees Celsius of warming, GDP losses could reach 10% globally.

The cost of inaction is not a projection; it is already appearing in quarterly results, insurance premiums and productivity data. Meanwhile, the Asian tiger mosquito – whose bite can transmit dangerous parasites and viruses – is now well-established in over 20 European countries.

Here is what I believe demands immediate action, from leaders and decision-makers everywhere.

The first is governance. Climate change must enter the national security conversation – not as a metaphor, but as a standing agenda item on national security councils, alongside defence and economic resilience. Every ministry dealing with food, water, energy, transport and housing is already managing climate health impacts whether it recognizes it or not, just without dedicated budget lines and cross-government mandates. This is what needs to change.

The second is health systems, and here the private sector has an indispensable role. Up to 80% of health sector emissions come from supply chains. The commission calls for harmonized, climate-resilient procurement standards across the pan-European region – which would send a consistent, predictable demand signal to every supplier in that chain.

Companies that move early on low-carbon health supply chains will not only reduce system emissions, but they will also secure long-term contracts as standards tighten. This is a market opportunity as much as a policy imperative. Mental health should also be integrated into climate preparedness planning. Climate grief, displacement trauma and eco-anxiety are real clinical phenomena that our health systems are not yet equipped to handle at scale.

The third is cities. More than 70% of the European region’s population lives in urban areas. Clean-air zones, active travel infrastructure, green spaces, heat health action plans – these are proven interventions with measurable health and economic returns. The productivity gains from cleaner air are measurable and significant, and businesses operating in those cities will feel them. WHO/Europe will advocate city leadership and inter-urban networks to develop an accountability framework to monitor and report on city-level progress, giving investors and businesses the transparent data they need to make informed location and operational decisions.

The fourth – and perhaps most fundamental – is economic reform. The prevailing GDP-centric model is financing the damage it claims to be managing. The time is right for subsidy reform, reallocation of finance towards climate-health investment, and the adoption of beyond-GDP indicators that capture health, equity and environmental sustainability.

Development banks, institutional investors and the private sector all have a stake in this shift. When governments systematically evaluate public spending on its climate and health impact, it creates a more stable, predictable policy environment – the foundation for long-term private investment.

The commission has also made a bold call to the World Health Organization as an institution: to formally declare climate change a public health emergency of international concern and mobilize a coordinated global response. That call deserves to be heard at the highest levels of global health governance. For my part, I will ensure that WHO/Europe will treat climate change as a threat to health security in its regional planning, disease surveillance, and emergency preparedness and response.

The window for action still exists, but it is narrowing fast. The commission has done its work. Now the rest of us need to do ours.