2023-11-15 09:03:56
A 4.7-fold increase in heat-related deaths by mid-century. This is the risk that the world will run if the delay in action to combat climate change continues. The authors of the eighth annual report of ‘The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change’ make this prediction based on new global projections. The report launched by one of the most important international scientific journals highlights the impact of inaction on climate issues and on the objective of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels. And it reports how this is “costing lives and livelihoods”.
Already in 2022 (even with the current ten-year warming average of 1.14°C) people were exposed on average to 86 days of health-threatening high temperatures, of which 60% were at least twice as likely to experience occur due to human-caused climate change. While the world is “on track to experience a 2.7°C increase in global warming by 2100” and energy-related emissions have reached a new record in 2022, the authors denounce the “negligence” of governments, companies and banks that “continue to invest in oil and gas” as the challenges and costs of adaptation increase and the world approaches irreversible damage. “The lives of current and future generations hang in the balance”, is the alarm raised by experts.
“Our health toll reveals that the growing risks of climate change are leading to losses of lives and livelihoods around the world. Projections of a world 2°C warmer reveal a dangerous future and remind us that the pace and the scale of mitigation efforts to date are woefully inadequate to safeguard people’s health and safety,” says Marina Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown at University College London. “With 1,337 tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted every second, we are not reducing emissions fast enough to keep climate risks within levels that our health systems can address. Inaction comes at a huge human cost and we cannot afford this level of disengagement Every moment of delay makes the path to a livable future more difficult and adaptation increasingly costly and challenging.”
The authors warn that without decisive and rapid mitigation action to address the root causes of climate change, the health of all humanity is gravely at risk. The new regional section of the report highlights the diverse and unequal experiences of climate change impacts on health and who is benefiting from climate change adaptation and the health co-benefits of the clean energy transition. The authors outline the opportunity that a just energy transition offers to reduce health inequalities and improve the health and well-being of all populations.
In 2023, the world recorded the warmest global temperatures in 100,000 years, and temperature records were broken on every continent. Heat-related deaths in people over age 65 increased 85% during 2013-2022 compared to 1991-2000, significantly exceeding the 38% increase expected if temperatures had not changed (i.e. taking into account only demographic changes), the authors note. The growing destructiveness of extreme weather events puts water security and food production at risk, exposing millions of people to the risk of malnutrition, the authors report. More frequent heat waves and droughts were responsible for 127 million more people experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity in 122 countries in 2021, compared to annual data between 1981 and 2010.
Likewise, changing climate patterns are accelerating the spread of infectious diseases. For example, warmer seas have increased by 329 km per year since 1982 the area of the world coast suitable for the spread of Vibrio, a bacterium that can cause disease and death in humans, setting a record of 1.4 billion people at risk of diarrheal diseases, serious wound infections and sepsis. The threat, the report warns, is particularly high in Europe, where coastal waters suitable for the bacterium have increased by 142 km each year. And there is also the economic aspect: the total value of losses resulting from extreme weather events was estimated at $264 billion in 2022, 23% more than in the period 2010-2014.
The world is going in the wrong direction, warn the authors who in the report argue the need for “urgent health-focused climate action” in order to move the global economy towards a zero-carbon economy, offering at the same time “transformative opportunities” to improve the health of the world’s populations through better energy access and security, cleaner air, safer drinking water, healthier diets and lifestyles and more livable cities.
“We are already witnessing the unfolding of a human catastrophe, with the health and livelihoods of billions of people around the world imperiled by record rising temperatures, crop-damaging droughts, rising levels of hunger, growing epidemics of infectious diseases and deadly storms and floods”, the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres (who was not involved in the drafting) wanted to point out in response to the publication of the report.
But, adds Romanello, “there is still room for hope. The focus on the topic of health at COP28 is an opportunity not to be missed to guarantee commitments and actions. If climate negotiations lead to a fair and rapid elimination fossil fuels, if they accelerate mitigation action and support health adaptation efforts, then the Paris Agreement’s ambitions of limiting global warming to 1.5°C and a healthy and prosperous future are still achievable.” .
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