Information from Governance Regulation reporting on adaptation (2023, 2021)

The health sector is covered in the National Climate Change Adaptation Plan 2021-2030 - PNACC (NAS, 2020) and the Climate Change Adaptation: Work Programme 2021-2025 (NAP, 2021)

Health is one of the 18 areas of work defined by the PNACC with the aim of facilitating the integration of adaptation actions in the different fields of public and private management. The PNACC defines objectives and lines of action that specify the work to be carried out in order to achieve the objectives within the health sector.

According to the Impacts and Risks derived from the Climate Change in Spain report (2021), health is one of eight areas of action that have been identified where the impacts of climate change are or will be relevant in the coming decades, either due to their vulnerability, their exposure or its relevance for urban management.

Health is addressed in several efforts to integrate climate change adaptation into sectoral policies, plans and programs, such as the Long-term decarbonization strategy (2020). Chapter 5 is devoted to adaptation to climate change and raises "the need to assume adaptation to climate change as a State policy, due to its profound implications for the economy and the country's natural capital, and with it, the basic conditions to ensure the health and well-being of people of this and successive generations". It presents adaptation measures in 10 thematic areas. The Strategic Plan for Health and Environment (2021) dedicates one of its 14 thematic areas to climate change.

Projects and indicators with a health focus have been developed under the framework of the PNACC. The project Adaptation and health protection in the face of climate change created a Catalogue of experiences and good practices in public administrations and companies. A health sector indicator has also been developed.

The health sector receives funding to increase climate resilience and reduce vulnerability to climate change in line with a more uniform distribution in budget lines that correspond to different units of the General State Administration dealing with key sectors.

A practical example of aggregate effects resulting from adaptive capacity can be found in the evolution of high temperature-induced mortality. Since 2004, the implementation of the National Plan of Preventive Actions on the Effects of Excess Temperatures on Health has improved adaptation to heat.

Information from EEA report. Climate change and health: the national policy overview in Europe (2022)

National policies on climate change adaptation and national health strategies were analysed to identify the coverage of climate-related impacts on health (physical, mental, and social) and the types of interventions addressing them. The report provides a European overview, while the geographical coverage of various aspects of national policies across Europe can be visualized using the map viewer. The results for Spain are summarised here.

Policy documents reviewed:

National Plan for the adaptation to climate change 2021-2030

Strategic Plan for health and environment/ Plan Estratégico de Salud y Medioambiente 2022 – 2026

Aspects covered in the reviewed policy document:

Resources in the Observatory catalogue on Spain