Climate change is posing significant health risks to people worldwide, according to a new report from the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change.
The 8th annual Lancet Countdown report, funded by Wellcome and developed in collaboration with the World Health Organization, showcases the work of 122 experts from 57 academic institutions and UN agencies worldwide.
Rising global temperatures, driven by greenhouse gas emissions, are taking an unprecedented toll on public health. Heat-related mortality among seniors and vulnerable populations, including infants, reached crisis levels, said the Lancet report released October 30, 2024.
Despite the commitments of the 2015 Paris Agreement, global temperatures are nearing the 1.5°C limit—a threshold at which climate-induced health risks are expected to escalate dramatically, said the report released ahead of the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Many health threats and impacts of climate change are exceeding all previous records. Of the 15 indicators monitoring climate change-related health hazards, exposures, and impacts, 10 reached concerning new records in their most recent year of data, the latest assessment of the connections between health and climate change found.
In 2019-23, people were exposed, on average, to 46 more days of health-threatening heat than would have been expected without climate change, a value that reached a record high of 50 more days in 2023.
In 2023, 31 countries experienced at least 100 more days of health threatening heat than would have been expected with no climate change. The number of health-threatening heat days added by climate change decreases with increasing Human Development Index level, reflecting strong global inequalities in heat exposure.
With climate change resulting in night-time temperatures rising faster than daytime temperatures in many world regions, the risk of adverse health outcomes from poor sleep quality is rising globally.
2023 saw a record six per cent more hours of sleep wasted due to high temperatures than the 1986-2005 average according to the Lancet report. Sleep deprivation has a detrimental impact on both mental and physical health.
In 2023, people over 65 years of age experienced an average of 9.3 more heatwave days compared to 1986-2005, resulting in 167 per cent more annual deaths of adults older than 65 years than in the 1990s. Such deaths would have increased, but only by 65 per cent, in the absence of the temperature change for the world’s aging population.
The findings in the report also showed an increase in extreme weather events. Nearly half of the world’s landmass suffered extreme drought at some point in 2023, while nearly two-thirds had an increase in extreme precipitation days between 1961-1990 and 2014-2023, increasing the danger of flooding.
As of 2022, 151 million people in 124 countries were experiencing moderate to severe food shortages due to the combined effects of heatwaves, droughts, and other extreme weather conditions.
While life-threatening diseases like dengue, malaria, and West Nile virus continue to spread into new areas due to rising temperatures, hotter and drier weather caused more sand and dust storms, which in turn led to a 31per cent increase in the number of people exposed to dangerously high particulate matter concentrations.
“Extreme drought contributed to human exposure to dangerous amounts of desert dust, which increased in 48% of countries between 2003-07 and 2018-22,” read the report.
At COP29, which begins on November 11, 2024, countries are expected to adopt the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance and set up governance for the Loss and Damage fund.
According to the report, engagement of the health sector with these processes will be essential to ensure that the funding mechanisms optimise the health gains of climate action and account for the economic and non-economic losses and damages associated with the health impacts of climate change.