China National Climate Change Health Adaptation Action Plan (2024–2030)

Climate change is a shared global challenge. In recent years, the worsening effects of climate change, characterized by global warming, have intensified extreme weather and climate events such as extreme heat and heatwaves, floods, extreme cold and cold waves, and typhoons, posing severe threats to human survival, life, and health. Climate change has thus become one of the most complex public health issues of the 21^st century. To fulfill the mandate of comprehensive promotion of climate change health adaptation actions set out in the National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy 2035, this action plan has been developed to enhance health adaptation capacity, contributing to the “Healthy China” and “Beautiful China” initiatives.

 

Emphasize a balanced approach to mitigation and adaptation, and integrate health adaptation principles throughout the climate change policy systems. Adhering to the principles of proactive, scientific, systematic, and collaborative adaptation, this action plan aims to prevent climate change related health risks, strengthen health adaptation actions, and advance health promotion capabilities. This emphasizes moving the focus of disease prevention forward, prioritizing an adaptation interconnected mechanism led by health early warning systems for climate change, fostering diverse, cross-level health adaptation policies and collaborative actions, and strengthening climate change adaptation and risk prevention capacities.

 

By 2025, a collaborative, multi-departmental mechanism addressing climate change and health will be improved, and a policy and standard framework will be constructed. The construction of climate-sensitive diseases monitoring systems will be strengthened, and climate change and health evaluation indicators will be developed. The first round of assessments on health risks, vulnerabilities, and adaptation capacities related to climate change will be completed, with a comprehensive list of major research needs.

 

By 2030, a system of policies and standards for climate change and health will be primarily established. Monitoring and early warning capacities for the health impacts of climate change and extreme weather and climate events will be consistently strengthened. Assessment systems for health risks, vulnerabilities, and adaption capacities will be well-developed. The resilience of key regions and sectors, as well as health systems to climate risks, will be significantly enhanced. A friendly environment for supporting climate change health adaptation across the whole society will be preliminarily formed.

 

Establish a comprehensive and integrated cross-departmental system encompassing “Planning–Monitoring–Warning–Assessment–Intervention”. Enhance department collaboration through regular consultations, emergency communications, and joint assessments to ensure effective information sharing. Accelerate the development and reserves of interdisciplinary human resources and innovative capacities in climate health adaptation, forming a collaborative, multi-departmental platform for coordinated adaptation actions.

 

Actively promote the integration of policies across disease control and prevention, health, environment, water resources, and meteorological departments. Formulate public health policies and comprehensive intervention measures for climate change adaptation tailored to key regions and sectors. Establish technical standards for assessing health risks, vulnerabilities, and adaptation capacities related to climate change, and introduce public health technical guidelines for climate change health adaptation, formulate behavioral norms and guidelines for the public to respond to climate change and health adaptation.

 

Establish a multi-departmental monitoring, warning ,and response mechanism. Compile a comprehensive list of climate-sensitive diseases, and build monitoring and early warning systems. Issue early warnings and health advisories for infectious diseases such as plague, dengue, malaria, Japanese encephalitis, zoonotic diseases, emerging infectious diseases, as well as chronic conditions influenced by climate, including cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, mental health disorders, and allergies. Strengthen forecasting for extreme weather and climate events like heatwaves and cold waves, issue risk early warnings for climate-sensitive diseases, and publish public health advisories and preventive measures.

 

Effectively identify and clarify climate change related health risks and vulnerable populations, and research and develop risk assessment plans and guidelines. Fully consider regional climate characteristics and the exposure levels and health risks for vulnerable populations, and develop localized indicators for assessing climate change and health risks. Conduct adaptation capacity assessments for key regions and vulnerable populations, and formulate plans to enhance adaption capacity. Compile an annual report on climate change health adaptation, and establish comprehensive, regular evaluation mechanisms.

 

Strengthen coordinated health adaptation capacity for climate change. Explore ways to effectively integrate climate change related health risk management into the planning, design, construction, completion and ,acceptance systems of infrastructure and major projects. Reinforce urban and residential climate change adaptation capacity by optimizing the layout of city functionality, ensuring the safe operation of infrastructure, and improving the service functions of the urban ecosystem. Strengthen the construction of flood disaster prevention capabilities and the guarantee of water supply. Enhance meteorological services to create a smart weather and health service model. Explore climate change health adaptation models for tourism and agriculture. Improve the operation and security of the power sector and improve the disaster prevention and resilience of transportation infrastructure.

 

Promote climate change health adaptation and intervention in key locations and for vulnerable populations. Improve workplace sanitation in key locations, and optimize health protective equipment and personal protective supplies. Strengthen basic public health services for vulnerable populations, including pregnant women, children, the elderly, and patients with chronic diseases like hypertension. Improve health service capacity at the primary level, and develop targeted health interventions for vulnerable populations. Establish labor protection standards for workers exposed to extreme weather and climate events like extreme heat and heatwaves. Improve the vaccine development and vaccinations for climate-sensitive diseases, and mitigate risks for climate-sensitive diseases. Enhance the prevention and intervention capabilities of emerging infectious diseases. Improve injury monitoring and warning systems, and enhance injury prevention capabilities for vulnerable populations during extreme weather and climate events.

 

Strengthen health emergency response capabilities for extreme weather and climate events. Establish a comprehensive system for health emergency equipment and materials reserves. Develop emergency plans that combine peacetime and emergency situations for extreme weather and climate events, involving multiple departments in joint drills. Strengthen health emergency response capabilities, including guaranteeing drinking water sanitation, environmental sanitation treatment, epidemic monitoring and control, and vector-borne disease prevention during natural disasters such as floods and mudslides caused by extreme weather and climate events.

 

Enhance emergency medical response capabilities for extreme weather and climate events. Promote societal co-governance, coordination ,and integration between medical and preventive systems, and improve risk prevention, emergency response, and self-rescue skills among the general public during extreme weather and climate events. Strengthen equipment and allocation of emergency medical rescue, enhance spatial three-dimensional rescue capabilities ,and improve regional collaboration capabilities for remote guidance, on-site treatment, reasonable transfer, and continuous monitoring. Improve emergency and first aid capacity and material reserves at healthcare facilities to manage unexpected situations with a large-number of cases. Strengthen psychological intervention for post-traumatic stress disorder related to extreme weather and climate events by establishing a mental health crisis intervention network led by healthcare facilities, supported by mental health professionals and volunteers.

 

Enhance the development of green and low-carbon healthcare facilities. Integrate green and low-carbon construction standards with the conservation of land, electricity, water, and material into the design and construction of new and expanded healthcare facilities, thereby reducing carbon emissions during infrastructure construction. Encourage the use of the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and big data to create energy and resource management platforms for healthcare facilities, to explore and track the relevant energy consumption.

 

Enhance the resilience and recovery capabilities of healthcare facilities for extreme weather and climate events. Promote emergency plans for extreme weather and climate events and secondary disasters at all levels of healthcare facilities, ensure the advance stockpiling of medical supplies based on forecasts of extreme weather and climate events, and maintain core functions of healthcare facilities for a certain period during extreme weather and climate events. Establish an indicator system for assessing climate resilience of healthcare supply chains, and conduct regular evaluations.

 

Improve diagnostic and treatment capabilities for climate-sensitive diseases. Enhance clinical guidelines for diagnosis and treatment, operational standards, and clinical pathways for climate-sensitive diseases, strengthen equipment, medicine, and medical supply reserves, and increase the capabilities of diagnosis, treatment, first aid, nursing ,and rehabilitation for healthcare facilities. Improve remote diagnostic platforms and medical treatment teams for climate-sensitive diseases, and establish a telemedicine response mechanism. Develop diagnostic and treatment capabilities of the healthcare facilities at the primary level, tailored to climate features in different climate-sensitive regions and urban agglomerations with specific functional orientations, creating a hierarchical diagnosis network for climate-sensitive diseases.

 

Strengthen publicity, education ,and guidance on climate change and health. Develop targeted publicity and education strategies tailored to different demographic groups to promote climate change and health education in villages, communities, public places, and schools. Educate, guide ,and promote the public to practice simple and moderate, green and low-carbon, civilized and healthy lifestyles, equip them with self-help and mutual aid skills for extreme weather and climate events, and raise the public literacy on climate change and health. Implement pilot projects for climate health adaptation in cities, villages, communities, and key locations (e.g., hospitals, industries, child care, schools, and elderly care facilities), and summarize replicable adaptation models.

 

Strengthen research and development of advanced adaptive technologies and health products. Conduct research on management strategies, core technologies, and key equipment for the climate change and health field, and support the establishment of exchange platforms across industry-academia-research collaboration. Reinforce foundational research on key climatic risk factors affecting the occurrence and development of climate-sensitive diseases and their underlying mechanisms. Develop appropriate technologies and application models for risk assessment, prediction, early warning, classification and grading, and protection for climate-sensitive diseases. Study on cost-effective evaluations for climate change health adaptation measures. Create climate change and health data products and intelligent software to promote big data applications in climate change health adaptation.

 

Deepen international cooperation on climate change health adaptation. Actively participate in global public health governance, building a collaborative and mutually beneficial climate change health adaptation governance system. Strengthen the tracking and interface of climate change health adaptation policies and strategies of international organizations and regional institutions, and promote scientific and technological exchange and cooperation in the climate change and health field. Expand technical support to countries and regions along the Belt and Road Initiative, actively contribute Chinese wisdom to global efforts.

 

(1) Enhancing Organizational Leadership. All regions and departments should incorporate climate change health adaptation actions as key components of their work priorities, ensuring unified deployment and coordinated advancement. A work coordination mechanism should be established with clear divisions of labor and departmental responsibilities. The provincial Department of Disease Control and Prevention, taking into account local conditions, should lead the formulation of implementation plans for climate change health adaptation actions.

 

(2) Ensuring Support and Safeguards. Increase the support and safeguards for climate change health adaptation actions by prioritizing climate change and health monitoring, early warning, and laboratory building within the general programme of project and information platform constructions.

 

(3) Enhancing Capacity Building. Establish a National Expert Committee on Climate Change and Health, build up technical alliances, and enhance think tank capabilities. Promote training in climate change and health skills and practical exercises to raise professional ability. Provide broad-based training to improve the educational abilities of social organizations, volunteers, and other public education entities.

 

(4) Strengthening Guidance on Implementation. Department of Disease Control and Prevention, together with relevant departments, should promote the implementation of the action plan, ensuring that each task progresses effectively. Perform a full-process management to gain a holistic understanding of the progress and effectiveness of climate change health adaptation actions.