More people are getting sick and dying from extreme heat, drought and other climate impacts, an international team of experts warned on Wednesday.
The Lancet Countdown, a yearly assessment carried out by leading researchers and institutions, said climate change had put the health of humanity “at grave risk" – adding that almost five times more people would likely die because of lethal heat in the coming decades.
The report, the eighth of its kind, presents 47 different indicators of climate change and human health, including heat mortality, food insecurity and air pollution exposure.
Modelling combining rising temperatures with demographics showed that mortality rates for people older than 65 have increased by 85 percent since the 1990s.
Vulnerable people, including babies, were now are exposed to twice the number of annual heatwave days than they were from 1986 to 2005.
Energy-related carbon emissions hit new highs last year, the report said, despite calls for urgent global action. It found that ongoing massive fossil fuel subsidies were still a factor.
Rising inequalities
For the first time, The Lancet Countdown includes a breakdown of regional trends that lay bare the inequalities between developed and less developed nations.
It found that in small island developing states, 103 days of health-threatening temperatures every year were linked to climate change between 2018 and 2022.
Across Europe, North America and Oceania, that number was less than 30.
Meanwhile loss of labour caused by heat stress wiped out the equivalent of 4 percent of Africa’s GDP in 2022.
The report was the first to carry projections on the impacts that will be felt in a warmer world.
Under a 2C warming scenario, an estimated 525 million more people will experience food insecurity between 2041 and 2060, compared with the years 1995 and 2014.
The grim news comes during what records show will likely be the hottest year in human history.
It also comes ahead of crucial Cop28 climate talks in Dubai later this month.
