Health, Climate and Indigenous Resilience: Lessons from Taiwan at COP30

A World Climate Foundation Thought-Leadership Article 

By George Hu, Regional Representative, Asia, World Climate Foundation 

At COP30 in Belém, where tropical forests, climate justice, and nature resilience took center stage, one key theme rose above the rest: health is now a frontline climate issue. As the world confronts rising temperatures, biodiversity loss, and widening social inequities, the insurance and health sectors –historically peripheral to climate dialogue – are emerging as central actors in strengthening societal resilience. 

This year, Nan Shan Life Insurance (hereinafter referred to as "Nan Shan Life"), Taiwan’s largest independent life insurer, provided one of the clearest examples of what climate-aligned health leadership can look like. Led by Chairman Yin Chung-Yao, Nan Shan’s senior sustainability and health executives traveled almost 40 hours to Belém to share Taiwan’s experience on building climate-resilient health systems, protecting Indigenous communities, and designing long-term financial and social protections in a warming world. 

Their message at COP30 echoed a growing global consensus: climate action must be health action, and health equity must become a core component of climate policy. 

Climate Change Is a Health Crisis, and a Governance Challenge 

Extreme heat, infectious disease expansion, and ecosystem degradation are already reshaping public-health risks worldwide. Data cited by Nan Shan Life underscores this reality: 

• In the past 20 years, heat-related mortality among people over 65 increased by 70% globally. 

• Tropical primary forest loss in 2024 reached 6.7 million hectares, driving biodiversity collapse and creating new zoonotic risks. 

• Rainforest degradation is now directly associated with outbreaks such as Oropouche fever in northern Brazil, illustrating how ecological disruption becomes a health emergency. 

For Taiwan, an island with 3.6 million hectares of land and 2.2 million hectares of forest, these global trends are deeply local. Taiwan’s Indigenous communities, many living in high-risk mountainous areas, face rising climate vulnerability, unequal access to healthcare, and significantly shorter life expectancy. 

COP30’s emphasis on adaptation, resilience, and Indigenous Peoples & Local Communities (IPLC) placed Nan Shan Life’s work squarely within the evolving global climate agenda. 

Health as Climate Resilience: Taiwan’s Integrated Model 

Across COP28–COP30, Nan Shan Life has developed an increasingly comprehensive framework that links insurance, preventive health, finance, and community partnerships into a unified climate-resilience approach. 

1. Prevention First: The “Health Protection Circle” 

Since 2020, Nan Shan Life has integrated health-promotion services into the insurance model, providing preventive care, digital health tools, and long-term support. 

Usage has exceeded 520,000 engagements, illustrating demand for prevention-driven health resilience in an ageing, climate-stressed society. 

2. From Finance to Resilience: Insurance as Early-Warning Infrastructure 

At COP29, Nan Shan Life emphasised the insurer’s role in risk recognition, risk mitigation, and risk transfer – essential functions as Taiwan experiences higher temperatures and more extreme events. Research cited at COP29 found that for every 1°C increase in summer temperature, cardiovascular mortality in Taiwan increases by 2.9%. 

3. A Five-Pillar Health Capital Framework for COP30 

At COP30, Nan Shan Life advanced its most comprehensive vision yet: building “health capital” across five dimensions – individual, lifestyle, corporate, societal, and environmental – to strengthen climate and ageing resilience. 

This aligns with the global shift toward holistic, system-level health adaptation strategies, now encouraged under the UAE Declaration on Climate and Health and WMO–WHO resilience frameworks. 

Indigenous and Local Communities: A Model for Climate–Health Equity 

Nan Shan Life’s COP30 contribution also highlighted how climate justice must include health justice. 

Taiwan’s mountain Indigenous communities experience: 

• Life expectancy 8.65 years shorter than the national average 

• Limited healthcare access 

• Increased risk from climate-driven disasters and crop loss 

To address this, Nan Shan Life launched the “Nan Shan Care for Remote Indigenous Villages Program”, a long-term program designed to build health resilience in remote communities. 

Impact to Date: 

• Over 60,000 beneficiaries since 2023 

• 30 community health-promotion activities annually 

• Preventive screening for dementia, with 16% of screened elders identified as high-risk 

• Telemedicine equipment upgrades, better referral channels, and integrated NGO–hospital cooperation networks 

This program demonstrates how financial institutions can widen the resilience net for communities on the front line of climate impacts, an area of growing focus among global climate-finance coalitions. 

What the World Can Learn: Insurance and Health Systems as Climate Infrastructure 

Nan Shan Life’s work reflects an emerging paradigm shift: health systems, insurers, and community-care institutions must be recognised as climate-critical infrastructure. 

Three insights from their COP30 contribution offer broader relevance for global partners: 

1. Climate adaptation must integrate public-health capacity building 

Heat, disease, and ageing risks interact and amplify one another. Without health-system resilience, climate resilience cannot be achieved. 

2. Indigenous governance and rights-based models are essential 

Taiwan’s co-management approach – sharing forest stewardship between government and Indigenous communities – strengthens biodiversity protection, livelihoods, and health outcomes simultaneously. 

3. Financial institutions can accelerate health equity 

Through blended finance, insurance innovation, and long-term preventive care, insurers can redirect capital and services toward vulnerable populations, which is an essential pillar of climate justice. 

Toward COP31 and Beyond: Health as the Next Frontier of Climate Action 

As the world prepares for the next phase of global climate negotiation, one thing is clear: the boundary between climate, nature, and health is dissolving. 

Nan Shan Life’s example underscores the role that insurers and health institutions can play in: 

• Building climate-resilient health systems 

• Supporting Indigenous communities and local economies 

• Reducing health inequities exacerbated by climate change 

• Mobilising long-term financial capital for adaptation 

• Turning prevention and care into climate strategy 

This approach represents the kind of integrated climate–nature–health leadership that the World Climate Foundation aims to elevate globally. 

The next decade will not only determine whether the world can stay within 1.5°C, it will determine whether communities can stay healthy, safe, and thriving in a rapidly changing environment. 

Health must now become a central pillar of global climate action. Taiwan’s example shows what this future can look like. 

Health, Climate and Indigenous Resilience: Lessons from Taiwan at COP30