The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been substantially worsened by climate hazards in many places. In others, outbreak response has been disrupted . These vulnerabilities are rooted in insufficient disaster preparedness infrastructure but are almost always worsened by social and economic inequality. Ensuring the most vulnerable populations are properly protected from climate change has co-benefits for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic . In particular, efforts to reduce syndemic vulnerabilities across key sectors  will lessen climate change impacts and will also reduce the risk and impacts of future epidemics and pandemics, for example, during the pandemic, water scarcity has been a barrier to a key risk mitigation behaviour . In the long-term, development efforts focused on WASH will reduce this vulnerability and also reduce the health toll of diarrheal disease linked to climate change . Spending recovery funds on social safety nets will reduce inequality and protect the most vulnerable communities  from the social and economic impacts of disasters. Key among these safety nets is universal health coverage, including low- or
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report