Scientists put women’s health, miscarriage risk on COP29 agenda
New research says that the health risk to mothers and newborns posed by global warming is a “blindspot” in the majority of national climate plans. It must not be sidelined by COP29 negotiators.
(Baku, Azerbaijan) — The risk of harm to pregnant women and babies caused by the climate crisis, including miscarriages and premature births, has been highlighted by new research aimed at decision-makers attending COP29 in Baku, and its sobering findings deserve just attention and action.
The report, put together by the UNESCO-funded World Climate Research Programme and others, says that changing climate patterns have both direct and indirect effects on pregnant women, and that impacts are more severe in climate-vulnerable regions where there is limited access to resources.
“Increased pregnancy loss, preterm birth, severe maternal ailments, and cognitive impacts on offspring are some of the risks, yet policy responses are insufficient,” the report stresses.
Although health is prioritised in National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), explicit attention to sexual, maternal, reproductive, and children’s health is ‘”very limited,” it warns.
Only 27 out of 119 national climate plans submitted to the UN include action related to mothers and newborns, making this a major “blind spot”, it says.
This year’s UN climate talks COP29 kick off today in Azerbaijan just days after deadly flooding hit the southern Spanish region of Valencia — making the acceleration of climate change, and its impact on civilians, even harder to ignore.
Spain’s worst flooding disaster in recent history saw a year of rain fall in just eight hours and resulted in more than 200 deaths.
Research carried out across 33 countries in South and Central America, Asia and Africa has estimated that flood events may be responsible for over 107,000 pregnancy losses each year in these regions, the new report said.
Urgent call for action
Last year, UN agencies issued an urgent call for action, stressing the “severe health risks” to pregnant women, babies and children in the face of worsening climate catastrophes.
The main cause of planet-destroying emissions is the burning of fossil fuels.
In a joint statement, the World Health Organization, UN Population Fund, and UN Children’s Fund bemoaned the “neglect, underreporting, and underestimation of climate events’ effects on maternal and child health.”
That call to action was issued — similar to this year’s report — just ahead of the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, and recommended seven urgent measures, including sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, climate finance actions, and specific inclusion of the needs of pregnant women, babies, and children in policies.
The Dubai climate talks made some progress on tackling greenhouse gas emissions, through a new oil and gas decarbonisation charter, and in climate finance pledges, and many had high expectations that this year’s talks would build on those.
Yet this COP also opens in the shadow of the victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election, which poses a towering threat to the fight against global warming. The Republican president-elect has already promised to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Though Trump won’t be sworn in until January, his victory puts U.S. negotiators at these climate talks in a seriously weakened position, thereby complicating emissions-cutting efforts and public finance initiatives in what has been dubbed as the ‘finance COP.’
New frontiers in research
A critical report published in October 2023 marked the first time that global research focused on the climate plans of 119 countries to see whether they integrate access to contraception, safe birthing, and protecting women and girls from gender-based violence into their adaptation goals.
The research by UNFPA, the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency, found that many countries have made “commendable progress in highlighting sexual and reproductive health and rights in their plans; but a majority fall short.”
Heat exposure in countries like South Sudan can increase infant and maternal mortality, and in countries like Côte d’Ivoire it can pose risks to pregnant women and those undergoing menopause, the research found.
Women and girls are disproportionately impacted by climate-crisis-driven food insecurity and malnutrition in famine-prone countries like Burkina Faso, Mali and Somalia, it said.
In addition, girls and women are disproportionately at risk in countries like Paraguay that experience extreme weather events and those where incidences of gender-based violence due to climate change are higher, including Costa Rica, Jordan and Tunisia.
As the research mounts, so does the case for recognising pregnant women and newborns in all national climate plans as being highly vulnerable to climate change, and giving them the protection and support they need.
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