The pledges, made as the COP28 summit on Sunday, focused on climate-related health risks, included 100 million USD from the UAE and another 100 million USD from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Reuters reported. Others to announce funds for climate-related health issues included Belgium, Germany and the US Agency for International Development.

According to experts, as the world warms, the burden of tropical diseases will worsen along with other climate-driven health threats including malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress. Floods in Pakistan last year, for example, led to a 400% increase in malaria cases in the country.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said, “Heat-related deaths among people aged over 65 have climbed 75 percent globally in two decades. Every year, 7 million people die from air pollution."

"Changing weather patterns, driven by human activity and the burning of fossil fuels, is contributing to record numbers of cholera outbreaks. And our warming planet is expanding the range of mosquitoes, which carry dangerous pathogens like dengue, Zika and yellow fever into places that have never dealt with them before,” he said.