BACKGROUND:
Climate change is causing extreme weather, spreading of disease, devastating and lasting harm to humans, nature and the planet, and heightened conflict and insecurity.(1,2) We have increasingly dire scientific evidence of the health arguments for urgent climate action.(3,4) This workshop will review the opportunities for advocacy and legal action following the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion on climate change(5), and highlight the case for an UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on climate change.(6,7) Thirty years after the adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), progress has been hampered by the limitations of CoP meetings and processes, with the need for consensus, influence of the fossil fuel industry, the rise in populism, and recent geopolitical fragmentation. Opportunities have also emerged. In July 2025 the ICJ delivered a wide-ranging advisory opinion which also affirmed states’ international legal obligations to advance the right to health in the climate crisis. Similar guidance has been delivered by regional courts in the Americas and Europe (Africa is pending). Description: The workshop will review the outcomes of CoP30 from a public health perspective and the positioning of health as the argument for climate action. It will draw on experience with a prior and continuing threat to global health, the HIV pandemic, and consider how a UNGASS on climate change might break the logjam of state inaction. Speakers with direct experience of the UNGASS on HIV and CoP30 will highlight opportunities for civil society, states and other actors to use these developments as opportunities for climate action. An open discussion of the role of the public health community in climate action will follow.

CONCLUSIONS:
The ICJ advisory opinion and an UNGASS on climate change provide critical new opportunities for public health advocacy for climate action at national, regional and global levels.