IFRC to COP 30: Hit climate change head-on!

By the Climate Centre

The IFRC today released its key messages to the forthcoming UN climate talk in Brazil, leading with a call to the international community “to hit climate change head-on!”  

The International Federation – the world’s largest humanitarian network – says it “sees the climate crisis as the top global challenge facing humanity and the planet”, and it is now focusing on three general areas: health and wellbeing, investment in people and communities, and timing to enable humanitarians to “get ahead of disasters”; each in turn incorporates three key asks.

Similarly, the IFRC lists important progress in each area, including new indicators for adaptation due to be agreed at COP 30 to operationalize the agreed international framework for climate resilience, against a backdrop of National Societies scaling up action on heat risk and with the yearly global Heat Action Day.

Locally led action

Heat kills almost half a million people each year, the IFRC document says, citing a US National Library of Medicine study, while only 0.5 per cent of multilateral climate adaptation finance goes to health and only 35 per cent of countries have early-warning systems for heat-related illness.

Broadly for COP 30, the IFRC reports that with National Societies it is scaling up locally led climate action through the Global Climate Resilience Platform, supported by its Climate Action Journey, which bridges climate, humanitarian, development, private and innovative finance.

As leaders of the Climate and Environment Charter for Humanitarian Organizations, it adds in the key-messages brief that it is committed to reducing the environmental footprint of operations and programmes.

With IFRC support, Heat Action Day 2025 was observed across Bangladesh where, in response to the growing threat of extreme heat driven by climate change, Red Crescent volunteers distributed drinking water to people working outdoors along with advice on protection. The photo appears in a briefing document containing IFRC key messages for COP 30 that was published today. (File photo: BDRCS via IFRC)