The latest Lancet Countdown report reveals the health threats of climate change have reached record-breaking levels.
While people in every country face unprecedented health threats from the changing climate, continued investment in fossil fuels and lagging funding for action to protect health persist. Urgently redirecting resources from the fossil fuel-based economy towards a zero-emissions, healthy future will deliver rapid health and economic benefits. Our 2024 Report tracks the relationship between health and climate change across five key domains and 56 indicators, providing the most up-to-date assessment of the links between health and climate change.
The 2024 Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change: Facing record-breaking threats from delayed action. The 2024 Report of the Lancet Countdown shows that people all around the world are exposed to record-breaking threats from delayed action on climate change. Of the 15 indicators monitoring the health hazards, exposures and impacts of climate change 10 reached a concerning new record in the latest year of data. In 2023, heat-related deaths of people over 65 years of age reached the highest level recorded, 167% higher than in 1990–99. This is more than twice the increase that would have been expected without temperature change. Heat exposure is increasingly limiting labour capacity, and resulted in a record 512 billion potential hours of labour lost globally in 2023. This is a 49% increase above the 1990-1999 average. The associated potential income loss reached a record-high US$ 835 billion. The Low Human Development Index (HDI) countries faced the biggest brunt, with labour losses equivalent to 7.6% of their GDP. Extreme precipitation events are also becoming more frequent, threatening food and water security, sanitation, infectious disease transmission, and increasing the risk of landslides and floods. A record 61.3% of the global land area saw an increase in the average number of extreme precipitation days per year in the latest decade compared to the 1961-1990 baseline. While changes in precipitation patterns and higher temperatures are also increasing the incidence of extreme drought. 48% of the global land area was affected by at least one extreme drought month in 2023,up from 15% in the 1950s…
