NADI, Fiji — United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell warned on Monday that extreme heat increasingly endangers pregnant women and their newborns.
Speaking at the pre‑COP summit in Nadi, Fiji, Stiell cited a recent survey indicating that over two‑thirds of health professionals from five continents reported observing heat‑related complications in the past five years.
“Rising temperatures translate into greater danger during pregnancy,” he said.
“Climate‑driven extreme heat during pregnancy is increasingly associated with premature birth, stillbirth, low birth weight, and maternal complications,” he added.
“The picture is clear and troubling: as extreme heat intensifies, pregnancy and childbirth have become a new fault line in the global climate crisis — one that can be fatal,” Stiell warned.
“This fault line must not widen into another deep chasm of climate‑driven suffering, inequality, and injustice,” he emphasized.
Scientists warn that climate change is intensifying extreme weather events and causing heat records to fall more frequently.
According to an AFP analysis of data from the European Union’s Copernicus climate observatory, around 33 countries — ranging from western Europe to the Sahel and Central America — experienced their hottest July on record this year.
The survey, which polled 1,000 midwives and doctors in the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Brazil, and Zimbabwe, was commissioned by the charitable foundation Wellcome.
Its chairwoman, Australian former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, said in a statement that mothers and babies are facing growing risk due to climate change.
“Extreme heat is an invisible killer, but pregnant women must not be overlooked. Leaders possess the evidence and solutions they need — now they must act,” Gillard said.
The survey revealed that nearly all midwives and doctors had cared for mothers or babies affected by extreme heat.
Approximately one‑third of respondents reported observing cases of low birth weight or restricted growth, feeding difficulties, and dehydration or heat‑related illness, which they attributed to extreme heat.
Stiell told pre‑COP delegates that “pregnancy should be a time of hope.”
“But for millions, it is turning into a time of anxiety, as climate impacts infiltrate daily life with risk,” he added.
The pre‑COP31 summit in Fiji and the remote coral atoll of Tuvalu is viewed by Pacific leaders as an opportunity to highlight life on the front lines of climate change.
These meetings serve as a precursor to the larger UN‑sponsored global climate summit — COP31 — scheduled for next month in Türkiye.
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