Climate change is raising temperatures to dangerous levels, causing more deaths and the spread of infectious diseases, while worsening drought and food security, a new report from health experts warns.
In 2023, the hottest year on record, the average person experienced 50 more days of dangerous temperatures than they would have without climate change, according to the Lancet Countdown, an annual report released Wednesday based on the work of 122 experts, including the Fund. World Health. Organization (WHO).
The report was released as heat waves, fires, hurricanes, droughts and floods continue in full force this year, which is expected to surpass 2023 and become the hottest year on record.
“Current policies and actions, if maintained, will put the world on the path to 2.7 [degrees Celsius] heating by 2100,” the report says.
Of the 15 indicators that experts have been tracking for the past eight years, 10 have “reached worrying new records,” according to the report, including increases in extreme weather events, deaths of elderly people from heat and people They run out of food as droughts and floods affect crops. .
The elderly are the most vulnerable, and the number of heat-related deaths in people over 65 last year reached a level 167 percent higher than the number of such deaths in the 1990s.
“Year after year, deaths directly associated with climate change are increasing,” said Marina Belén Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown.
“But the heat is also affecting not only mortality and increasing deaths, but also the diseases and pathologies associated with heat exposure,” he said.
Rising temperatures also mean a loss of profits, according to the report. Last year's extreme heat cost the world an estimated 512 billion potential work hours, equivalent to hundreds of billions of dollars in potential income.
'Stoking the fire'
The report also traces how oil and gas companies – as well as some governments and banks – were “fueling the fire” of climate change.
Big oil and gas companies, which have posted record profits, have increased fossil fuel production since last year, according to the report.
Many countries provided new fossil fuel subsidies to counter rising oil and gas prices after Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The authors warned that climate change is also making food less reliable.
With up to 48 percent of the world's land area facing extreme drought conditions last year, researchers said around 151 million more people would be experiencing food insecurity as a result, compared to the years 1981-2010.
Last year's extreme rains also affected approximately 60 percent of land, causing flooding and increasing risks of water contamination or infectious diseases, while the threat of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever grew.
The study's authors urged the upcoming United Nations climate summit, COP29, which will begin in Azerbaijan on November 11, to allocate funds to public health.
Despite these warnings, there were also “very encouraging signs of progress,” Romanello said.
Deaths from fossil fuel-related air pollution fell nearly 7 percent to 2.1 million between 2016 and 2021, mainly due to efforts to reduce pollution from burning coal, according to the report.
The proportion of clean renewables used to generate electricity also almost doubled over the same period to 10.5 percent, it added.
But Romanello also said: “No individual or economy on the planet is immune to the health threats of climate change.”
