Climate change transforms health threats into shared global challenges that transcend national boundaries. Mosquito-borne diseases don’t respect borders, heat waves affect entire regions simultaneously, and pandemic pathogens can circle the globe in days. This reality demands new forms of international cooperation that blend scientific expertise with diplomatic coordination, creating what some experts call “science diplomacy” in action.
Cross-Border Health Security
The international dimension of climate health risks became starkly apparent during recent disease outbreaks. When dengue cases surged globally in 2024, the outbreak didn’t follow neat national boundaries. Countries across multiple continents experienced simultaneous increases in transmission, driven by climate conditions that created optimal breeding environments for Aedes mosquitoes across vast geographic regions.
Dr. Madeleine Thomson’s experience as co-chair of Columbia University’s working group on global health security provided direct insight into how climate health threats challenge traditional approaches to international cooperation. Disease surveillance systems, vector control programs, and health emergency responses that were designed for national contexts often prove inadequate when facing climate-driven health risks that operate at regional or global scales.
The WHO Collaborating Centre structure represents one model for addressing these cross-border challenges. Thomson’s work directing the WHO Collaborating Centre on Malaria Early Warning Systems created a framework for sharing climate-health expertise and methodologies across countries while respecting national sovereignty and local contexts.
The Challenge of Scientific Coordination
International scientific collaboration in climate health faces unique challenges that differ from other forms of research cooperation. Climate data, health surveillance information, and research capacity are unevenly distributed globally, creating power imbalances that can undermine effective partnership.
Many countries at highest risk for climate-sensitive diseases have limited meteorological infrastructure, sparse health surveillance systems, and few researchers with climate health expertise. This creates dependencies where vulnerable countries must rely on external institutions for basic environmental monitoring and disease prediction capabilities.
Thomson’s approach to addressing these inequities involves building local capacity rather than simply providing external expertise. During her field work in Africa, including operational research supporting The Gambia’s national impregnated bednet program, she observed how sustainable health interventions require local ownership and expertise rather than external dependency.
Institutional Frameworks for Cooperation
The World Health Organization provides the primary institutional framework for international health cooperation, but climate health challenges strain existing WHO mechanisms. Traditional disease-specific programs may be inadequate when climate change simultaneously affects multiple diseases across diverse geographic regions.
Thomson’s work with the Meningitis Environmental Risk Information Technologies (MERIT) research consortium illustrates how specialized networks can address specific climate health challenges while complementing broader WHO activities. MERIT focuses on meningococcal meningitis in Africa’s Sahel region, where climate variability drives epidemic patterns that require coordinated regional response.
These specialized networks operate through what might be called “epistemic communities”—groups of experts who share common knowledge and approaches to specific problems. In climate health, these communities often include meteorologists, epidemiologists, entomologists, public health practitioners, and social scientists who must work across disciplinary boundaries.
However, sustaining these collaborative networks requires ongoing institutional support and funding. Research grants typically support projects for 3-5 years, but building effective international collaboration often requires decade-long commitments to relationship building and capacity development.
North-South Research Partnerships
Climate health collaboration frequently involves partnerships between institutions in high-income countries with advanced research capacity and institutions in lower-income countries that face the highest disease burdens. These partnerships can provide valuable benefits but also risk recreating colonial patterns if not structured carefully.
Thomson’s current role at Wellcome involves funding research teams across 12 countries to develop digital tools for climate-sensitive disease response. This approach emphasizes supporting locally-led research rather than imposing external solutions, recognizing that effective tools must reflect local contexts, capacity, and priorities.
The 24 research teams funded through this initiative include institutions in Vietnam developing E-DENGUE outbreak prediction systems, African teams working on malaria early warning tools, and Latin American groups focusing on dengue prevention strategies. Each project addresses local needs while contributing to global knowledge about climate-health relationships.
Data Sovereignty and Sharing
International climate health collaboration increasingly confronts questions about data sovereignty and equitable sharing arrangements. Climate and health data often have commercial or strategic value, creating tensions between open science principles and national interests.
Satellite data from government space agencies is generally available for research use, but health surveillance data frequently remains within national systems. This creates challenges for developing regional or global prediction models that could benefit multiple countries.
Thomson’s experience with international data sharing reveals the importance of building trust through sustained relationships and demonstrating clear benefits for data-contributing countries. Early warning systems must provide valuable information to local health officials, not just serve external research interests.
Some initiatives are developing governance frameworks for equitable data sharing that ensure benefits return to communities and countries providing data. These frameworks attempt to prevent extraction of valuable information from vulnerable countries while building genuinely collaborative research relationships.
Capacity Building and Knowledge Transfer
Effective science diplomacy in climate health requires sustained investment in capacity building rather than one-way knowledge transfer. Many countries need strengthened meteorological services, enhanced disease surveillance systems, and training for health professionals in climate-health relationships.
Thomson emphasizes that capacity building must address fundamental knowledge gaps. She advocates for incorporating “fairly straightforward information on climate and environmental disease drivers in all epidemiological training that happens around the world.” This educational foundation enables health professionals to understand and use climate information effectively.
International training programs increasingly emphasize South-South learning, where countries with similar climate and disease challenges share experiences and expertise. Brazil’s experience with dengue control, for example, provides valuable lessons for other tropical countries facing similar challenges.
Crisis Response Coordination
Climate-driven health emergencies often require rapid international coordination that challenges existing diplomatic and institutional mechanisms. The 2016 Zika outbreak in the Americas demonstrated both the potential for international cooperation and the limitations of current systems.
Thomson’s analysis of that outbreak revealed how climate variability, globalization, and urbanization combined to create conditions for rapid international spread. The response required coordination between health agencies, meteorological services, research institutions, and international organizations across multiple countries.
However, the response also revealed gaps in international preparedness. Early warning systems existed in some countries but not others, research capacity was concentrated in wealthy countries, and information sharing mechanisms proved inadequate for the speed of outbreak spread.
Building Resilient Networks
Global health networks increasingly emphasize building resilience rather than just responding to specific threats. This approach recognizes that climate change will continue creating new combinations of health risks that cannot be fully anticipated.
Resilient networks require multiple types of connections: scientific collaboration for research and knowledge sharing, operational partnerships for surveillance and response, diplomatic relationships for policy coordination, and community connections for local implementation.
Thomson’s experience spanning academic research, WHO collaboration, and foundation work provides insight into how these different types of partnerships can reinforce each other. Academic collaboration builds scientific understanding, WHO frameworks provide legitimacy and coordination mechanisms, and foundation funding enables sustained relationship building.
Technology Transfer and Innovation
Science diplomacy in climate health increasingly involves technology transfer and collaborative innovation. Countries with advanced AI and satellite capabilities can share tools and expertise with countries that have extensive field experience and local knowledge.
This exchange can be mutually beneficial when structured appropriately. High-income countries gain access to field sites, local expertise, and validation opportunities for new technologies. Lower-income countries gain access to advanced tools and training while maintaining ownership of local data and implementation strategies.
Professional development initiatives emphasize building research partnerships that strengthen local capacity rather than creating dependency relationships. This includes training programs, equipment sharing, collaborative research projects, and visiting scholar exchanges.
Regional Approaches to Global Challenges
Some of the most effective climate health cooperation occurs at regional levels, where countries share similar climate patterns and disease challenges. The Sahel region of Africa, for example, experiences similar patterns of meningococcal meningitis related to seasonal climate variability.
Regional approaches can address climate health challenges more effectively than either purely national or global initiatives. Countries in the same region often share vectors, pathogens, climate patterns, and migration routes that create common health risks requiring coordinated response.
Thomson’s work with MERIT demonstrates how regional research consortiums can address specific climate health challenges while building networks that strengthen broader cooperation. These regional partnerships often provide stepping stones toward more ambitious global collaboration.
The Diplomacy of Scientific Uncertainty
Climate health science involves significant uncertainties that complicate diplomatic coordination. Climate models provide probabilistic predictions rather than definitive forecasts, disease outbreak predictions have inherent uncertainty, and the effectiveness of interventions varies by location and context.
Managing these uncertainties in international cooperation requires developing shared understanding of what scientific information can and cannot provide. Thomson notes that “predicting exactly what, where and when is really difficult. Instead we need to prepare ourselves to be able to respond rapidly to a broad range of possible threats.”
This perspective suggests that science diplomacy in climate health should focus on building adaptive capacity rather than trying to eliminate uncertainty. Countries need systems that can function effectively despite incomplete information and evolving threats.
Future Cooperation Frameworks
As climate health risks intensify, new forms of international cooperation are emerging that blend scientific collaboration, diplomatic coordination, and operational partnership. These frameworks attempt to address the limitations of existing institutions while building on successful models.
Multi-stakeholder initiatives involve academic institutions, government agencies, international organizations, and private sector partners in sustained collaboration. Platform approaches create shared infrastructure for data sharing, tool development, and capacity building that multiple countries and organizations can use.
However, the success of these new frameworks depends on addressing fundamental questions about equity, sovereignty, and sustainability. Effective climate health cooperation requires mechanisms that serve the interests of all participating countries while prioritizing the needs of populations most vulnerable to climate health risks.
The Imperative for Sustained Partnership
Climate change ensures that health threats will continue evolving, requiring sustained international cooperation rather than crisis-driven responses. Thomson’s career spanning field research in Africa, WHO collaboration, and international climate health leadership demonstrates the time and relationship-building required for effective partnership.
The most successful climate health cooperation often emerges from sustained personal and institutional relationships built over years or decades. These relationships provide the trust and shared understanding necessary for effective collaboration during health emergencies.
As climate risks intensify, the countries and communities best positioned to protect population health will be those that invest in building and sustaining these collaborative relationships. Science diplomacy in climate health isn’t just about sharing data or technologies—it’s about building the human networks and institutional frameworks necessary for collective action against shared threats.
The warming world demands new forms of cooperation that recognize health security as a global public good while respecting national sovereignty and local contexts. The science is clear about the risks ahead; the remaining challenge is building the diplomatic and institutional capacity to respond collectively and effectively.
