As Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) responds to health crises in more than 70 countries, our teams see firsthand the suffering caused or exacerbated by climate change and environmental degradation, most often experienced by the most vulnerable people.

We are witnessing how climate change directly threatens health – for example, through death and injury due to extreme weather – and how climate change impacts health indirectly, through food insecurity and shifting patterns of climate-sensitive infectious diseases.

Recognising the role of the climate emergency in amplifying humanitarian needs, we are adapting our operations to be more responsive to the people  most affected, while also facing up to the challenges of measuring and reducing our own environmental footprint.

Below is MSF's policy brief for this year's Lancet Countdown on health and climate change.