Karl Lauterbach and the call for the next state of emergency: When the dramaturgy of crisis becomes a political business model

Climate change as the next “pandemic”? The controversial WHO plan and the legal hurdles

Karl Lauterbach is making a comeback on the international stage – not as a pandemic manager, but as a prominent member of a new WHO expert commission. Its explosive core demand: The World Health Organization should declare the climate crisis a global health emergency of the highest alert level. While the alarming death toll from extreme heat and air pollution is scientifically undisputed and demands an immediate change of course, the legal and rhetorical implementation of this demand is drawing criticism. Is the call for a new, global emergency medically and legally justified – or is it rather the political business model of a man who masters the dramaturgy of a crisis like no other? This article examines the complex tension between genuine, valid health data, insurmountable legal hurdles, and the question of how much alarmism the climate debate can tolerate.

Karl Lauterbach and the call for the next state of emergency: From pandemic minister to climate prophet

Karl Lauterbach is back in the spotlight. This time not as the incumbent health minister, who posted daily coronavirus charts on Twitter, but as a member of an eleven-person WHO expert commission that has made a demand of global political significance: The World Health Organization should classify the climate crisis as a global health emergency – at the highest alert level last declared at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. What at first glance sounds like a scientifically sound appeal reveals, upon closer inspection, several layers – a factual one, a legal one, a political one, and one that says a great deal about Karl Lauterbach himself.

The alarm and its originator: Who is behind the report?

The demand comes from the so-called Pan-European Commission on Climate and Health (PECCH), which was established in June 2025 by the WHO's European office in Reykjavik. The commission is chaired by former Icelandic Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir and comprises 13 former heads of government, ministers, and representatives of civil society from across the WHO's pan-European region, which encompasses 53 countries. Members include Lauterbach and the Danish former EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard. On May 17, 2026 – just before the annual World Health Assembly in Geneva – the commission presented a 54-page report demanding nothing less than the formal declaration of climate change as a public health emergency of international concern.

Lauterbach himself emphasized the urgency to the German Press Agency: The WHO must devote more attention to combating the climate crisis; waiting makes no sense as the catastrophe unfolds. As a basis for his statement, he referred to the scientific finding that in Europe alone, 600,000 deaths are caused annually by the burning of fossil fuels and another 60,000 by heat waves. These figures largely coincide with independent studies: In the record-breaking summer of 2024, according to calculations by the Instituto de Salud Global Barcelona (ISGlobal), published in Nature Medicine, more than 62,700 people in Europe died from extreme heat – around a quarter more than the previous year. In three consecutive summers, the total number of heat-related deaths exceeded 181,000. According to the WHO, the number of deaths due to air pollution from fossil fuels for the entire European region was around 569,000 premature deaths in 2019 alone.

The scientific basis is therefore solid – there is no serious doubt about that. Climate change is killing, and it is already doing so today, not just in some distant future.

The data situation: Where the alarm is justified

The health consequences of climate change are not a hypothesis, but a verifiable reality. Europe is warming twice as fast as the global average, making the pan-European region the fastest-warming continent on Earth. In the summer of 2024, with approximately 6,300 heat-related deaths, Germany was the third most affected country after Italy (over 19,000) and Spain (over 6,700). While Germany, with 74 heat-related deaths per million inhabitants, lags significantly behind Greece (574 per million) when adjusted for population density, the trend is clear: heat-related mortality is increasing, and with it, the pressure on healthcare systems to adapt.

Worldwide, the use of fossil fuels leads to more than five million deaths annually, according to a study conducted with the participation of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. The WHO itself has recognized climate change as a global health threat for years, and the WHO General Assembly included it as a strategic priority in its 2025–2028 work program. In its advisory opinion of July 2025, the International Court of Justice recognized a human right to a healthy environment and clarified that all states are obligated under international law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The convergence of science, law, and health policy on this issue is striking.

The 17 recommendations formulated by the PECCH in four areas – climate change as a growing threat to health security, transformation of health systems, strengthening local action, and reform of economic and financial systems – are factually sound and consistent with scientific consensus. They include, among other things, mandatory training for health professionals in the field of climate and health, climate-friendly procurement standards for healthcare, and the establishment of a WHO information center on climate and health.

The legal hurdle: A PHEIC for climate change?

The Commission's central demand to classify the climate crisis as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) faces a significant legal obstacle. The International Health Regulations (IHR), the legally binding international framework for such declarations, apply to 196 states parties and define a PHEIC as an exceptional event that poses a risk to other states through the international spread of disease and may require a coordinated international response. The six PHEICs declared to date—including H1N1 (2009), Ebola, and COVID-19—were all acute, internationally spreading infectious diseases.

When asked whether these criteria were applicable to climate change, the WHO has consistently denied this. A WHO spokesperson stated that the climate crisis has been ongoing for decades and is a chronic global crisis – therefore, the technical prerequisites for a PHEIC declaration are not met. The WHO's own regulations simply do not provide for a creeping, structural threat to be declared an acute emergency under the International Health Regulations (IHR). While amendments to the IHR, introducing a new level of pandemic emergency, came into effect in September 2025, this remains reserved for epidemiological events.

More than 200 scientific journals, including The Lancet and the British Medical Journal, had already made an identical demand in 2023 – without success. This underscores that the commission's PHEIC demand is not a new proposal, but rather a reiteration of a position already known and rejected by the WHO itself. The symbolic value of this demand far outweighs its legal substance. Declaring a public health emergency would have no concrete impact anyway, as the WHO cannot dictate to any country which measures to take – that is a decision each country makes for itself.

Lauterbach's method: The aesthetics of perpetual crisis

Viewed in isolation, this episode is a factually legitimate, albeit legally questionable, contribution to the health policy debate. However, when considered within the context of Karl Lauterbach's political career, it takes on a different quality. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lauterbach has been arguably Germany's most prominent political communicator on health issues – and his communication follows a recognizable pattern: systematic dramatization. Like almost no other politician, he was in the public eye during the pandemic and was repeatedly seen as a voice of caution, demanding strict protective measures – and this prominence ultimately led him to the Federal Ministry of Health.

It was Lauterbach who dominated public discourse during the pandemic via talk shows and Twitter – he is considered one of the most active politicians on social media platforms. His warnings were often pointed, sometimes dramatic, and occasionally outside the realm of scientific consensus. In retrospect, he himself admitted that some coronavirus measures had been "nonsense" – such as mandatory mask-wearing while jogging outdoors or the extended closures of schools and daycare centers. The closure of schools and daycare centers had proven to be a mistake, as the assumption that they would be hotspots for infections had not been borne out.

This retrospective self-criticism raises a fundamental question: How much of Lauterbach's public pronouncements is based on scientific knowledge, and how much is political calculation? The revelations from 2024 provide important illustrative material for answering this question. Investigations by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, NDR, and WDR, based on internal emails, proved that Lauterbach, as Minister of Health, had personally blocked the Robert Koch Institute's downgrading of the COVID-19 risk assessment for months in early 2022 – contrary to the scientific advice of his own agency. An FDP politician accused him of utterly disregarding all facts and expert opinions with complete arrogance, while another critic spoke of personal grandstanding rather than scientific guidance.

The opportunism question: crisis as a career vehicle

Karl Lauterbach is not only a physician and epidemiologist. He holds a medical doctorate, a master's degree, and a Doctor of Science in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard School of Public Health, where he has been an adjunct professor since 2008. His academic qualifications are impressive. He has been a member of the Bundestag for the SPD (Social Democratic Party) since 2005. He owed his move to ministerial office to the energy he generated as a talk show guest and on Twitter during the pandemic. His appointment as Minister of Health at the end of 2021 was, in a sense, the institutional culmination of a public career that was largely driven by his warnings about the coronavirus.

After his term as Federal Minister of Health ends in spring 2025, Lauterbach faces the classic political question: How does one remain relevant? The answer suggested by his involvement in the WHO commission is: by connecting with the next major crisis. Climate change offers itself as an ideal opportunity. It is real, it is scientifically undeniable, it has health consequences – and it allows for the same communicative style that made Lauterbach famous: the dramatic emphasis on the urgent need for action, the warnings against the alleged indifference of the political class, the positioning as a lone voice of warning in the desert of inaction.

This finding is not automatically negative. It is perfectly legitimate to dedicate oneself to issues that are important to oneself after leaving ministerial office. And contributing one's own expertise to international bodies on a voluntary basis – Lauterbach explicitly emphasized that the commission's work is unpaid – is exemplary. The question, however, is whether the radical nature of the PHEIC demand is scientifically justified or whether it primarily serves to generate attention. The WHO itself has repeatedly rejected this demand; the legal basis is lacking, and even if the declaration were formally possible, it would have no binding effect on member states.

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The tension between real numbers and false framing

What complicates the analysis of Lauterbach's role in this debate is the genuine soundness of the underlying data. The 600,000 deaths from fossil fuels in Europe, to which he refers, are not a figment of the imagination. The WHO itself puts the number of premature deaths from air pollution in its European region at over 569,000 in 2019 alone. The European Environment Agency (EEA) cites comparable figures. The approximately 62,700 heat-related deaths in Europe in the summer of 2024 are documented in a peer-reviewed study published in Nature Medicine. Europe is warming, and the health consequences are measurable and deadly.

The problem lies not in the numbers, but in the framing. Air pollution from fossil fuels is not the same as climate change in the narrow sense. The 600,000 deaths are predominantly caused by direct emissions of particulate matter and nitrogen oxides – a problem that exists largely independently of global warming temperatures and has been known for decades. It is an enormous, solvable public health problem with its own political urgency – but it is a different problem than climate change itself, even though both stem from the same cause (fossil fuels). The rhetorical conflation under the term "climate pandemic" conflates two conceptually distinct causal chains in a way that fosters more emotion than clarity.

Furthermore, the Commission argues that the current IHR framework is simply not designed for chronic, insidious threats – precisely the problem that a PHEIC declaration is intended to address. This is intellectually honest, but it also highlights that the demand is a categorical category error: it calls for the application of an instrument that is by definition reserved for acute events to a chronic crisis – and justifies this by claiming that the instrument is inadequate. The more logical consequence would be a reform of the PHEIC instrument itself or the creation of a new legal framework for chronic health threats, not a declaration that stretches the existing criteria.

Lauterbach's relationship to science: Selective evidence-based practice

A recurring pattern in Lauterbach's political activities is what critics call selective evidence-based policymaking. He consistently presents himself as a scientist-politician who preaches fact-based politics – and it was precisely for this reason that he clashed with the pharmaceutical industry and other interest groups. In retrospect, he described himself as a lobbyist scourge and emphasized that he kept lobbyists at arm's length and instead sought dialogue with scientists. At the same time, there are documented instances in which he politically instrumentalized scientific institutions – notably the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) – or disregarded their recommendations.

Another episode from the pandemic illustrates this pattern: Lauterbach repeatedly communicated on Twitter with a precision and drama that exceeded the scientific knowledge of his time – and occasionally corrected himself without fanfare. This created the impression among parts of the public and the scientific community that the message was more important than its epistemic soundness. The Berliner Kurier quoted him as saying that some coronavirus measures had been nonsense – a remarkably candid self-criticism, but one that also clearly demonstrates how far apart the communicated claim of security and the actual uncertainty were.

In the current climate debate, this pattern repeats itself in a transformed form. The assertion that climate change is a pandemic is an analogy, not a diagnosis. It has rhetorical value, but it is epistemically vague. Climate change does not spread from person to person, has no incubation period, and no index case. The instruments of pandemic control—quarantine, school closures, bans on gatherings—are not applicable to climate change. The PHEIC declaration for COVID-19 triggered concrete institutional consequences. What concrete institutional consequences does Lauterbach hope for from a climate PHEIC that the WHO itself considers non-compliant with its own rules?

The institutional perspective: What the WHO actually does

It would be unfair to judge the PECCH report and Lauterbach's commitment solely on whether their one central demand – the PHEIC declaration – is realistically achievable. The report contains far more than just this single demand. The WHO General Assembly has already included climate change as a strategic priority in its Six Goals program for 2025–2028. The WHO/Europe office itself appointed the commission and actively promoted its report. WHO Regional Director Hans Henri P. Kluge stated at the report's launch that climate change is a security risk, a health emergency, and an economic time bomb all in one, and that governments are subsidizing the fuels that cause the climate crisis and the resulting health burdens to the tune of billions.

The report's 17 recommendations are operationalizable and factual: integrating climate protection into national security councils, mandatory continuing education in healthcare, climate-friendly procurement standards, a WHO Climate Information Centre with fact-checking, and regular evaluation of the climate resilience of national health systems every two years. These are not ideological demands, but practical steps that correspond to scientific consensus and pose serious challenges for WHO member states. Therefore, the report's true value lies in these recommendations, not in the PHEIC demand, which dominates the media because it establishes the strongest narrative link to the pandemic.

Media impact versus political substance: A structural problem

The problem, which can be exemplified by the Lauterbach case, is not an individual one, but a structural one of modern health policy. A society that increasingly communicates health risks publicly and negotiates them on social media needs communicators who can translate scientific complexity into public attention. Lauterbach is indeed exceptionally gifted in this regard. He possesses the academic rigor, the rhetorical acuity, and the media presence that such a communicator requires.

The structural problem lies in the inherent tension between communicating urgency and communicating nuance. Those who constantly sound the alarm will eventually be treated like the shepherd boy who cried "wolf" too often – even when the wolf actually comes. The credibility that was temporarily lost during the pandemic, due to inconsistent risk assessments and recommendations for action, is difficult to regain. And the climate debate desperately needs precisely this credibility, because it is fighting against well-organized and well-funded denial or trivialization.

If the PHEIC demand is read as a symbolic gesture—an attempt to rhetorically disrupt the WHO's institutional framework to signal urgency—then it is an understandable tactical move in a debate where public attention is itself a scarce resource. However, if it is presented as a serious political proposal with real institutional consequences, then it is misleading because it suggests a possible response that simply does not exist, either legally or institutionally.

The image of a politician reflected in his crises

Karl Lauterbach embodies a type of modern politician who gains importance not through partisan power games or coalition arithmetic, but through the ability to identify crises, frame them, and transform them into political energy. This is not a weakness; it is a genuine competence—and in a time when political institutions are increasingly losing the public's trust, it is even a necessary one.

His critic will say: Lauterbach is looking for his next stage, having been given one by the coronavirus pandemic. He's using the climate issue to raise his public profile because, as a mere member of parliament without a ministerial post, he risks fading into the background. His defender will counter: A PhD epidemiologist with a professorship at the Harvard School of Public Health, who volunteers on a WHO-appointed commission and formulates a largely undisputed scientific warning based on solid data, is doing exactly what one would expect from an informed expert politician.

Both perspectives are valid. The truth, as so often, lies in the intersection. Lauterbach is not a hypocrite who doesn't believe what he says. He is a politician whose personal convictions and his communicative style are in a mutually reinforcing interaction: he seeks out crises because he believes them to be real; he believes them to be real because he seeks them out. This self-reinforcing logic is understandable from a human perspective, politically productive, and analytically problematic.

The economic dimension: costs of action and costs of inaction

What the Commission report – and thus Lauterbach as well – emphatically underscores is the fundamental economic equation of climate change costs. The costs of inaction far outweigh the costs of early mitigation and adaptation. Fossil fuel subsidies, which finance the climate crisis while burdening health systems, represent a double burden on public budgets. Internalizing the health externalities of fossil fuels – that is, factoring the health costs of 600,000 deaths from air pollution and 60,000 heat-related deaths into the prices of fossil fuels – would dramatically shift the economic balance in favor of renewable energies.

The Commission argues that gross domestic product (GDP) as a measure of progress is fundamentally in need of reform: it counts the consumption of fossil fuels as economic output without considering the health costs of air pollution, the economic burden of climate disasters, and the well-being of future generations. This critique of the current GDP measurement is not a marginal academic position, but is now found in economic policy discussions at the OECD, the World Bank, and a growing number of national statistical offices. A welfare measure that systematically ignores health externalities distorts economic policy decisions in favor of activities that maximize short-term outputs and externalize long-term health burdens.

Herein lies the most substantial part of the Commission's report, which has received the least media attention: the call for a realignment of investment flows, away from fossil fuel subsidies and towards climate-resilient healthcare systems, public transport, and sustainable food systems. This call has more political and economic substance than the PHEIC declaration, but is harder to condense into a headline.

Between genuine seriousness and staged urgency

The episode surrounding Lauterbach's involvement with the WHO climate policy defies easy assessment. Climate change is not some alarmist fabrication – it is already killing people today, in measurable numbers, in Europe and worldwide. The scientific basis of the PECCH report is sound, and most of its 17 recommendations are factually justified and politically feasible. Lauterbach's involvement in this commission is legitimate; his academic background qualifies him for this role, and the voluntary nature of his work protects him from the obvious accusation of personal enrichment.

What invites critical examination, however, is the pattern: the systematic choice of the most dramatic framework, the rhetorical link to the pandemic, the demand for a legal instrument that the WHO itself considers inapplicable and which would have no binding effect whatsoever. These communicative decisions are not neutral. They serve to generate attention – and they carry the risk that, should there be another factual discrepancy between the alarm and reality, trust in those issuing warnings will be further damaged, precisely at the moment when it is most urgently needed.

A mature political public would do well to acknowledge both points simultaneously: that the climate crisis is a serious health threat demanding political action – and that the credibility of those who warn most loudly rises and falls on the consistency between their claims and reality. Karl Lauterbach is both: a competent scientist-politician with genuine expertise and a political actor who has made the drama of the crisis his trademark. Acknowledging this ambivalence is not an attack on him personally – but rather a prerequisite for an informed public debate about climate policy, health risks, and the credibility of those who communicate them.