The climate crisis will have a catastrophic effect on the health and survival of billions of people unless the world takes action to reduce global warming. are affected as people struggle to work and food production shrinks.
The eighth annual report on health and climate change from the Lancet Countdown team shows that little attention was paid to previous warnings. The world, the report says, is “moving in the wrong direction” and strongly criticizes continued investments in fossil fuels.
The report comes as Cop28 prepares for the first Health Day, focusing on the links between the climate crisis and human health.
The report states that 127 million more people faced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2021 compared to the previous 30 years, putting them at risk of malnutrition and irreversible health damage. Life-threatening diseases are spreading, including dengue, malaria and West Nile virus. Warmer seas have led to the spread of water-borne vibriobacteria at a rate of 329 km per year along the coast since 1982, putting 1.4 billion people at risk of diarrhea, serious wound infections and sepsis. Exposure to air pollution – which is exacerbated by heat waves – increases the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, neurological disorders and adverse pregnancy outcomes.
The number of heat-related deaths among people over 65, who are more vulnerable, has increased by 85% since the 1990s. Without the rise in global temperatures, such deaths would have increased as the population grew, but only by 38%. The highest temperatures on Earth in more than 100,000 years were recorded in 2023, the report said.
Even at the current ten-year average warming of 1.14 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, there is a profound impact on the lives and health of people around the world. But, say the 114 experts from 52 research institutions and UN agencies, what we are seeing could be just the first symptoms of the coming disaster.
“Our health inventory shows that the increasing dangers of climate change are costing lives and livelihoods worldwide today. Projections of a two-degree Celsius hotter world reveal a dangerous future and a stark reminder that the pace and scale of mitigation efforts to date have been woefully inadequate to protect people’s health and safety.” said Dr. Marina Romanello, Executive Director of the Lancet Countdown. at University College London.
“There is a huge human cost to inaction, and we cannot afford this level of disengagement – we will pay with lives. Every moment we delay makes the path to a livable future more difficult and adaptation more and more expensive and challenging.”
The value of economic losses from extreme weather events was estimated at $264 billion in 2022, 23% more than in 2010-2014.
If temperatures rise by 2 degrees Celsius, heat-related deaths will increase by 370% and the number of lost working hours will increase by 50% by mid-century, according to new projections from the Climate Vulnerable Forum of the countries most at risk. By 2041-60, approximately 525 million people could face moderate to severe food insecurity, putting them at risk of malnutrition.
UN Secretary General António Guterres said there is no excuse for delay. “We are already seeing a human catastrophe unfold, with the health and livelihoods of billions of people around the world at risk from record-breaking heat, crop failures from droughts, rising hunger levels, increasing outbreaks of infectious diseases and deadly storms and floods,” said he. .
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Dr. Georgiana Gordon-Strachan, director of the Lancet Countdown regional center for Small Island Developing States, criticized rich countries for breaking their pledge to provide $100 billion a year to help vulnerable countries cope with the climate crisis.
“We are dealing with a crisis on top of a crisis,” she said. “People living in poorer countries, who are often the least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, bear the brunt of the health impacts, but have the least access to financing and technical capacity to adapt to deadly storms, the rising seas and the withering droughts. worsened by global warming.”
Investments, loans and government incentives for fossil fuel expansion are increasing, the report said.
However, there are some signs of progress, the report said. Deaths from air pollution from fossil fuels have fallen by 16% since 2005, with 80% of this decline due to efforts to reduce pollution from burning coal. Global investments in clean energy grew by 15% to $1.6 trillion in 2022, surpassing investments in fossil fuels by 61%. By 2022, 90% of electricity capacity growth was due to renewable energy.