Leading international medical journal The Lancet released a new research report on Wednesday showing that extreme heat caused about 3 million deaths worldwide between 2016 and 2023. Experts strongly urged the international community to formally designate climate change a “global health emergency” to spur governments to reshape public policy and accelerate their response to the climate crisis.
The latest annual Lancet Countdown report comes ahead of the 31st UN Climate Change Conference (COP 31), which will be held next month. It brings together 146 leading researchers across disciplines from 30 countries to comprehensively assess the threat that global warming poses to the health and survival of people worldwide.
The report's findings are alarming. In 2023 alone, heat-related deaths worldwide reached a record 710,000, with more than 70% directly linked to warming caused by human activity.
Heatwaves claimed over 3 million lives in eight years after Paris Agreement was signed
The report's executive director, Marina Romanello, told a press conference on Wednesday (28 October) that heatwaves had claimed more than 3 million lives worldwide in the eight years since the landmark Paris Agreement was reached at the climate conference in 2015. “That's roughly equivalent to the entire population of Wales being wiped out in the space of eight years due to heat.”
She further warned that as many as 68% of those 3 million deaths over the eight years could be directly attributed to climate change.
Addressing the growing threat to human survival, Marina Romanello stressed that designating global warming a “global health emergency” was intended to raise awareness of the crisis and encourage countries to adopt integrated responses that are easier to coordinate. She called for “an integrated approach so that we're not responding to emergency after emergency”.
She urged the international community to establish long-term coordination mechanisms to strengthen countries' climate resilience and health system capacity, address cascading risks and prevent such tragedies from recurring.
