New Delhi: India is the fifth-lowest scorer in the annual Global Healthy NDC Scorecard, which assesses countries based on how much they integrate public health action into their climate commitments. Despite high air pollution deaths, the country’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement do not mention health-related impacts of climate change or implement specific climate-health-related policies.
The report, 2026 Healthy NDC Scorecard, was released on 14 October by the Global Climate and Health Alliance, an international organisation, which scored 132 countries on their climate action plans or NDCs. The scoring methodology evaluated how frequently the plans were mentioned and included health-related measures relating to climate change, especially in air pollution, just transition, health economics, and finance.
Climate-preparedness report
Colombia was the highest-scoring country out of all 132 countries, scoring 29 out of 32 points, with its integrated climate action plan, which mentions the right to a healthy environment and health. Also, Colombia’s plan mentioned climate-related illnesses, the impact on nutrition and food security, and also a comprehensive air pollution reduction programme.
Apart from Colombia, other high-scoring countries include Nigeria, Cambodia and Paraguay, all of which explicitly mention specific health impacts of climate change and actions taken by their governments, as well as targets for future action.
“The Healthy NDC Scorecard enables us to evaluate how governments are considering health in their climate planning,” said Dr Nova Tebbe, postdoctoral researcher at GCHA and research lead of the study.
India, Japan, Liechtenstein, and New Zealand are the lowest-scoring countries in the report, with very few links between their climate action plans and public health. Moreover, India and Japan’s emissions reduction targets too are seen to be not aligned with the Paris Agreement.
India scored a zero on six out of eight parameters in the report, indicating that it did not quantify the health impacts of climate change, did not name air pollutants, did not have policies for adaptation in the healthcare sector, or refer to just transitions from the perspective of worker health and vulnerable populations.
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High score for the Global South
Other high-emitting countries like China, EU, US and the UK, also did not score well, getting less than 10 points each. While they did mention health in their NDCs, they did not match it with strong emissions reduction targets.
“In the past months, floods have killed hundreds of people in Nepal, millions of children are at risk of hunger in Eastern and Southern Africa, Europe and the United States have seen widespread heat-related mortality and hundreds of wildfires have raged in Canada,” said Tebbe in the press release.
“Clearly, climate action must be taken immediately, and implemented rapidly.”
The report mentioned how while most NDCs include mentions of health and air quality, fewer directly quantify these health-impacts of climate change. Only about 15 per cent of all NDCs surveyed actually linked health to just transitions, and only 15 per cent included their Ministry of Health in drafting their NDCs.
“The fact that the highest scores go to countries in the Global South reflects lived realities – these countries do not have the luxury of pretending that climate change and health can be separated,” said Jess Beagley, Policy Lead, GCHA, in a press release.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)