The climate killer we ignore: Women are losing babies. I call it ‘maternalcide’

Extreme temperatures are accelerating a global crisis of maternal mortality, doubling the rate of miscarriage in the hottest countries while dramatically increasing the risk of still- or premature birth. More than 100,000 pregnancies are lost every year due to flooding alone, and that’s only in the 33 countries studied for a recent report in the journal Nature Communications.

This disturbing reality is deeply personal for me as the US diplomatic envoy for the Republic of Chad, a country that’s reeling from a cataclysmic flood affecting 1.7 million people. It is also suffering from a fivefold surge of mpox infections in Africa.

Children should have the world in their hands, but will they? Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

But this is just the tip of the rapidly melting iceberg. From Florida and California to Chad and Peru, soaring heat and compounding natural disasters are causing women to lose babies to heart-related illnesses, mosquito-borne viruses and other fetal abnormalities at record rates.

But as world leaders assemble at the COP29 climate summit, women and children are being ignored. Of the 119 countries that have submitted climate commitments to the UN, only 27 include any action relating to – what I am calling – a burgeoning “maternalcide”. Unless we act now, this decline in maternal and newborn health could fundamentally alter the very fabric of our society, catalysing a social, economic and health crisis unlike anything humanity has endured before.

More than half of the world’s countries are already enduring a dramatic fall in fertility rates, a trend that is destabilising economies and burdening healthcare systems. Japan’s population is shrinking by almost 100 people per hour, and even China, home to a sixth of the world’s population, is expected to lose half of its population by 2100.

This global demographic shift, accelerated by climate-related maternal mortality, risks triggering a permanent feedback loop of escalating vulnerability. As societies grow less stable, we become increasingly ill-equipped to tackle climate change, compounding relentless geopolitical turmoil and economic struggles of recent years. This decline in our resilience will inevitably push women’s health even further down the priority list, creating a self-destructive spiral.

And that is why leaders at this year’s COP must set a new mandate, obliging countries to include practical actions on maternal and reproductive health in their climate plans.

Options could include establishing climate-resilient maternal health zones, providing urgent medical care as well as hydration stations and cooling systems. Healthcare workers should be trained to recognise and respond to the kind of climate-related pregnancy risks that led to recent preventable deaths in the hurricane-struck US.

Technological solutions must be scaled up to reach those who need them the most. Imagine how many lives could be saved if, for example, NASA’s latest AI model for the prediction of extreme weather was available in remote parts of the Global South.

More importantly, we must empower women. This means funding climate education, which the UN champions as a way to make women and girls “agents of change” to usher in a new era of sustainable living. Companies such as Unilever, Mars and Nestle have been funding such programs for decades, recognising them as an important investment in their supply chains.

The global advocacy Women Deliver is funding grassroots projects that empower local groups and young leaders to take charge of sexual health, reproductive rights and climate justice. The Muslim World League’s coming conference in Pakistan will convene thousands of scholars and politicians, including the prime minister of Pakistan, to launch a new charter on girls’ education in Muslim communities across the Global South. This initiative will be spearheaded by the league’s secretary-general, Mohammad Al-Issa, who has argued women – and their right to education – are key to tackling the climate crisis in the Muslim world.

As COP29 proceeds, the stakes for women’s health could not be higher. Already Donald Trump’s election in the US has sent shockwaves through the summit: governments, businesses and civil society organisations have cut their delegations or skipped the UN summit altogether.

But we cannot be deterred. Delegates at COP29 must recognise that protecting mothers and children is not a side issue. It’s the heartbeat of humanity’s future.

Nathalie Beasnael is the founder of Health4Peace, which provides medical supplies to hospitals in Chad, Senegal, Ghana, South Africa and Nigeria. She is the diplomatic envoy for the Republic of Chad to the US and was a delegate at COP28.

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