Heat-related deaths and illnesses are increasing due to climate change, experts warn Climate Crisis News

Climate change is causing temperatures to rise to dangerous levels, leading to more deaths and the spread of infectious diseases while worsening drought and food security, a new report from health experts warns.

According to the Lancet Countdown, an annual report released Wednesday based on the work of 122 experts including World Health, the average person experienced 50 more days of dangerous temperatures in 2023 – the hottest year on record – than without the Climate Change Organization (WHO).

The report was released as heatwaves, fires, hurricanes, droughts and floods continued in full force this year, with the year expected to extend beyond 2023 and become the hottest year on record.

“Current policies and measures, if sustainable, will put the world on the path to 2.7 [degrees Celsius] of warming by 2100,” the report says.

Of the 15 indicators the experts have tracked over the past eight years, 10 have “reached worrying new records,” the report said, including increasing extreme weather events, deaths of older people from heat, and people dying from drought and flooding affect crops.

Older people are most at risk, with heat-related deaths among people over 65 reaching levels last year that were 167 percent higher than the number of such deaths in the 1990s.

“Year after year, deaths directly linked to climate change are increasing,” said Marina Belen Romanello, executive director of Lancet Countdown.

“But heat not only affects mortality and increases the number of deaths, but also the increase in diseases and pathologies associated with heat exposure,” she said.

Rising temperatures also mean loss of profits, the report says. Last year's extreme heat cost the world an estimated 512 billion potential hours of work, equivalent to hundreds of billions of dollars in potential income.

“Step the fire”

The report also tracked how oil and gas companies – as well as some governments and banks – were “fueling the fire of climate change.”

Major oil and gas companies that posted record profits have increased fossil fuel production since last year, the report said.

Many countries granted new fossil fuel subsidies to counter rising oil and gas prices following Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Climate change is also making food more unsafe, the authors warned.

With up to 48 percent of the world's land area experiencing extreme drought conditions last year, the researchers say about 151 million more people will suffer from food insecurity compared to the years 1981 to 2010.

About 60 percent of the country was also affected by extreme rainfall last year, leading to flooding and increasing the risks of water pollution or infectious diseases, while the threat of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever increased.

The study's authors called on the upcoming UN climate summit COP29, scheduled to begin on November 11 in Azerbaijan, to allocate resources to public health.

Despite these warnings, there are also some “very encouraging signs of progress,” Romanello said.

Deaths from fossil fuel air pollution fell nearly 7 percent to 2.1 million from 2016 to 2021, largely due to efforts to reduce pollution from burning coal, the report said.

The share of clean renewable energies used to generate electricity has also almost doubled to 10.5 percent in the same period, it goes on to say.

But Romanello also said: “No individual and no economy on the planet is immune to the health threats of climate change.”