‘The Climate Crisis Is a Health Crisis’: Escalating Climate Impacts Threaten Health Worldwide

Human-driven climate change is causing temperatures to rise to dangerous new heights, while worsening drought and impeding food security, according to the ninth Lancet Countdown report.

The report by health experts and doctors warned that people all over the world are facing unparalleled health threats because of the climate crisis.

“This year’s stocktake of the imminent health threats of climate inaction reveals the most concerning findings yet,” said Dr. Marina Romanello, executive director of the University College London-led Lancet Countdown, as The Guardian reported. “Once again, last year broke climate change records with extreme heatwaves, deadly weather events, and devastating wildfires affecting people around the world. No individual or economy on the planet is immune [to] the health threats of climate change.”

The report found that extreme droughts of one month or more in 2023 affected 48 percent of the land on Earth, with people having to cope with 50 added days of dangerous temperatures because of global heating.

Last year, extreme temperatures and drought led to 151 million more people having to face moderate to severe food insecurity — in comparison with 1981 to 2010 — causing health risks like malnutrition.

The elderly are particularly vulnerable to the rising temperatures, with heat-related deaths for those over 65 last year 167 percent higher than in the 1990s, reported Reuters. The report said that, without climate change, they would have predicted that number to increase by 65 percent.

“Year on year, the deaths directly associated with climate change are increasing,” Romanello said, as Reuters reported. “But heat is also affecting not just the mortality and increasing deaths, but also increasing the diseases and the pathologies associated with heat exposure.”

In 2023, extreme rainfall affected approximately 60 percent of lands globally, causing floods and increasing the risk of infectious disease and water contamination.

The authors of the study encouraged leaders at next month’s United Nations COP29 climate summit to direct climate financing toward public health.

Last year’s high temperatures also caused people to lose an unprecedented six percent more hours of sleep than the average from 1986 to 2005, reported The Guardian. Poor sleep can lead to negative effects on mental and physical health.

The hotter, drier weather also meant more sand and dust storms, leading to a 31 percent jump in people being exposed to dangerous concentrations of particulate matter.

Despite these statistics, the authors of the study pointed out that “governments and companies continue to invest in fossil fuels, resulting in all-time high greenhouse gas emissions and staggering tree loss, reducing the survival chances of people all around the globe.”

Carbon emissions reached a record high in 2023, with fossil fuels making up 80.3 percent of total global energy, up 1.1 percent from 2022.

“Record-high emissions are posing record-breaking threats to our health. We must cure the sickness of climate inaction – by slashing emissions, protecting people from climate extremes, and ending our fossil fuel addiction – to create a fairer, safer and healthier future for all,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, as The Guardian reported.

The study was a collaboration between academic institutions, experts and United Nations agencies like the World Health Organization (WHO).

“The climate crisis is a health crisis. As the planet heats up, the frequency and intensity of climate-related disasters increase, leaving no region untouched,” said WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, as reported by The Guardian.