EDAR8 Workshop: The unholy alliance: A simulation exercise on tackling the climate–antimicrobial resistance–nexus

Facilitators: Dr Sunday Ochonu Ochai, Dr Kristina Osbjer, Prof. Sabiha Essack, Ms Cèlia Ventura i Gabarró

Aims: To build a shared evidence base for how climate change amplifies AMR risks in livestock and aquaculture systems, particularly in resource-constrained settings. Participants will engage with scoping review findings and hotspot analyses, then apply them through an interactive simulation exercise in which quadripartite expert groups respond to an escalating climate-AMR crisis, developing coordinated actions across research, practice, and policy. Drawing on field-tested in-country solutions, the session translates emerging evidence and spatial intelligence into integrated action, and informs the design of a resource guide for embedding a climate lens in AMR agendas.

Background: LMICs contribute least to climate change yet bear its greatest burden, and AMR similarly hits them hardest. When these threats converge in livestock and aquaculture systems, vital for nutrition and livelihoods, they form an unholy alliance with elevated consequences. Rising temperatures, extreme weather, and altered ecosystems increase disease incidence and antimicrobial use, accelerating the emergence and spread of resistant infections. This climate-AMR nexus remains critically understudied.

Workshop Participants and Activity: Participants spanning AMR, climate, veterinary, aquaculture, environmental health, epidemiology, and policy backgrounds, with particular value placed on LMIC field and One Health experience. After context-setting presentations on the climate-AMR intersection, hotspot mapping, and country interventions, participants form quadripartite expert groups of 7 to 8 to tackle an escalating climate-AMR crisis through a series of scenario injects, developing coordinated responses across research, practice, and policy.

Participants will:

• Engage with a synthesis model and hotspot maps that pinpoint convergence zones where climate and AMR risks intersect most severely, enabling evidence-based intervention targeting.
• Explore field-tested interventions that simultaneously reduce antimicrobial use and support climate-smart food production, with practical guidance on implementation and adaptation.
• Practise coordinating cross-sectoral responses through the simulation exercise, working in quadripartite expert groups to address an escalating climate-AMR crisis from research, practitioner, and policy perspectives.
• Help shape a guiding resource and collective research agenda, contributing to a joint workshop report, opinion article, or white paper on integrated climate-AMR action.