Lately, we've been getting a lot of questions about why we think climate-health resilience is one of the most important fields emerging in climate tech and public health.

The convergence of climate science, public health infrastructure, and advanced analytics isn't just timely; it's essential. 

In this article, we want to discuss why and how this space is developing, the opportunities for new technologies, and our expectations for 2026 based on the trends that are emerging.

The climate crisis is a health crisis.

Climate change risks the collapse of global healthcare, and it's reshaping who gets sick, when, and where. By 2050, it's estimated that climate change will add $1.1 trillion in healthcare costs annually and erase more than two billion healthy life-years.

When we look at individual health conditions, we find that extreme temperatures significantly increase healthcare incidents, hospitalizations, emergency department visits, and mortality. This is true across a variety of conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, respiratory illnesses, and mental health, and is compounded by other hazards like air pollution, wildfires, and floods. But our health systems aren’t prepared to deal with the impacts.

Most health systems around the world operate on reactive care models. We focus on treating illnesses rather than preventing them. There are several challenges with this model, especially in the context of climate change.

First, people often end up in advanced treatment stages, which are higher risk and more expensive. Second, hospitals and emergency departments end up being the primary source of care, straining capacity in an industry with severe worker shortages. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates a growing shortage of 11 million health workers by 2030. 

To summarize, we’re facing a global crisis that will cause billions of people around the world to need and seek emergency medical care, and a traditional care model that is unequipped to manage surges in demand. Pair that with underfunded and understaffed healthcare systems, and you can start to see why this is so urgent.

Mobilization and catalysts

Over the past year, international development organizations and philanthropic coalitions have centered climate-health resilience in the global climate agenda. It’s becoming a significant organizing principle behind adaptation discussions.

The clearest signal came at COP30, where the Belém Health Action Plan (BHAP) was formally launched. BHAP is a landmark climate adaptation framework and blueprint for health, outlining action items across surveillance, evidence-based policy, and innovation. It builds directly on the WHO's Global Action Plan on Climate Change and Health 2025-2028. It was endorsed by 30 countries and 50 organizations at launch, and that number is expected to grow. If you're interested to learn more, we've written a series about each action item here.

Alongside the BHAP, a coalition of 35 leading philanthropies, including the Gates Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Rockefeller Foundation, and Wellcome, announced a $300 million commitment to accelerate climate-health solutions. This is the kind of coordinated capital mobilization that signals a field is maturing. Here are some examples of grant opportunities appearing in the space:

• NIHR Climate Change and Health Research Collaboration Awards
• Wellcome Climate Impacts Awards
• Canada's Climate Change and Health Adaptation Program

Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council also invested nearly $11 million in research on climate-related health impacts. These aren't isolated decisions. They reflect a broader recognition of urgency, and a push to protect people's health under climate stress is foundational work.

Tech landscape and innovation opportunities

This capital mobilization is already reshaping the tech landscape. Climate resilience and adaptation are major themes in climate tech investing, specifically for the built environment. New technologies are giving us powerful tools for quantifying climate risks to physical, commercial assets. 

That work matters, but it’s incomplete. The most consequential climate risk is not to assets, but to people. Human health and functional capacity are the foundation of every system. A building that survives a heatwave, flood, or wildfire means very little if the people inside it cannot safely live, work, or receive care. Climate impacts that degrade human health ultimately ripple through everything, from healthcare and education to logistics, energy, and emergency response.

We see clear opportunities for high-impact innovation and technology to advance climate-health resilience:                                                                             

Localized information systems.

Most climate models operate at scales too coarse for health planning. The opportunity is in closing that gap: taking incoming climate signals like heat waves, flooding, and air quality events, and translating them into real-time, neighborhood-level health risks that identify who is exposed, how, and where they are. Do that well, and you get early warning detection, targeted resource allocation, and actionable decision support, all from one system. This is what we're building at Groundswell.

AI-powered disease surveillance.

Climate conditions drive the spread of vector-borne and waterborne diseases in ways that are becoming harder to predict with traditional methods. Machine learning systems that ingest real-time environmental data and flag outbreak risk before cases materialize are gaining traction, but are rare at scale. As climate-driven disease patterns accelerate, demand for these tools will grow fast. 

Mobile and community-level early warnings.

We’ve discussed the benefits of community and citizen participation in solution-building, and we are firm believers in empowering locals on the front lines to build climate resilience. Mobile phone penetration is high, even in low-income and climate-vulnerable regions. SMS-based systems that push actionable health warnings (stay indoors during heat events, avoid contaminated water sources after flooding) directly to communities can help prevent aggravated illnesses, injuries, and emergencies.

What we expect in 2026 and beyond

The momentum we're seeing today will accelerate through 2026. Here's what we're watching:

Summer 2026 will be an inflection point.

As another Northern Hemisphere heat season approaches, the gap between climate-health impacts and operational readiness will become impossible to ignore. Governments and health systems that have been signaling intent will face pressure to demonstrate tangible progress. Those who haven't started will find themselves scrambling.

BHAP commitments will drive action.

Countries that endorsed the Belém Health Action Plan are now on the clock. Translating action items into national strategies, surveillance systems, and funded programs will generate significant demand for the tools and technologies being built today. This is where pilots become deployments and startups become essential.

Venture capital will move in, and some already have.

7wire Ventures, a Chicago-based digital health VC firm with over $500 million in assets under management, has begun actively investing in this intersection of climate and health. In a recent analysis, they identified heat stress prevention, climate-driven disease surveillance, and disaster-resilient care as among the near-term themes. They're not alone. As the regulatory and philanthropic landscape solidifies, more private sector engagement will emerge, and VC firms will recognize that climate-health adaptation technology is a durable, high-growth category, with the same trajectory that GHG accounting and proptech adaptation followed before it.

Conclusion

Climate-health resilience is no longer a future concern or a niche intersection of two fields. It is rapidly becoming a core pillar of climate adaptation, public health strategy, and economic stability. Climate impacts on health are accelerating, global health systems are under strain, and governments, philanthropies, and investors are beginning to mobilize around solutions that move care from reactive treatment to proactive prevention. This shift is foundational to protecting lives, sustaining healthcare systems, and maintaining social resilience in a warming world.

The organizations, cities, and countries that move on it now will be meaningfully ahead of those that wait. All the conditions are aligned: the need is urgent, the capital is mobilizing, and the technology is maturing. To us, this is where climate innovation will create real, measurable impact on human lives.