Report Details Record-Breaking Health Threats of Climate Crisis, Fossil Fuel Subsidies

Over $1 trillion spent each year on subsidizing fossil fuel production must be redirected to public health efforts, said the experts behind a new annual report monitoring progress on the climate and global health.

The 2024 Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, published Tuesday in The Lancet by the Lancet Countdown at Universiy College London (UCL), found that delayed action on the climate emergency is exposing people across the globe to record-breaking threats, with 10 of 15 indicators showing that specific health threats have reached "concerning new levels."

"This year's stocktake of the imminent health threats of climate inaction reveals the most concerning findings yet in our eight years of monitoring," said Marina Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown and a senior research fellow at UCL. "Once again, last year broke climate change records—with extreme heatwaves, deadly weather events, and devastating wildfires affecting people around the world."

With 2023 named the hottest year on record earlier this year by the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, the researchers behind the new report found that the average person experienced an additional 50 days of dangerously hot weather that would not have happened without fossil fuel extraction heating the planet.

Heat-related deaths among people over age 65 reached the highest level ever recorded, 167% higher than in the 1990s and more than double the 65% increase that was expected if temperatures hadn't changed since then.

An additional 151 million people across 124 countries experienced moderate or severe food insecurity last year, an increase that was associated with extreme drought that affected almost half of global land area.

"We must cure the sickness of climate inaction—by slashing emissions, protecting people from climate extremes, and ending our fossil fuel addiction."

Changing climate conditions across the globe and the flooding that has come with more frequent hurricanes and tropical storms are also fueling a rise in the transmission of infectious diseases like dengue fever, according to the Lancet Countdown, and warmer coastal waters contributed a record-high number of cases of the bacterial infection vibriosis last year.

"The mosquitoes that spread infections like dengue fever epidemics are reaching new countries, and gradually moving north," said Anthony Costello, a professor at UCL Institute for Global Health and co-chair of the countdown.

But despite those indicators and others, said Romanello, "we see financial resources continue to be invested in the very things that undermine our health."

Researchers expressed optimism about rising investments in renewable energy, but warned that new fossil fuel investment accounted for more than a third of new energy spending in 2023, and 84% of world governments continue to subsidize fossil fuel production despite clear warnings from scientists that oil and gas extraction have no place on a pathway to limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C.

Governments are "in effect paying an estimated $1.4 trillion dollars per year to worsen the crisis," reportedThe Hill.

Meanwhile, "only 68% of countries reported high-to-very-high implementation of the legally mandated capacities to manage health emergencies in 2023," according to the Lancet Countdown. Just 35% of countries reported having early warning healthcare systems for heat-related illness.

"No individual or economy on the planet is immune from the health threats of climate change," said Romanello. "The relentless expansion of fossil fuels and record-breaking greenhouse gas emissions compounds these dangerous health impacts and is threatening to reverse the limited progress made so far and put a healthy future further out of reach."

Total carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion reached nearly 40 gigatonnes last year, a 1.1% increase from 2022, contributing to high levels of air pollution as well as changing climate conditions.

"National-level net subsidies exceeded 10% of national health spending in 55% of the countries, and 100% in 27% of them," reads a visual summary of the report. "These funds could be redirected towards supporting the transition to clean energy sources, protect vulnerable populations from soaring climate change risks, and enable a healthy future."

Redirecting fossil fuel subsidies "would provide the opportunity to deliver a fair, equitable transition to clean energy and energy efficiency, and a healthier future, ultimately benefiting the global economy," said Romanello.

Released less than two weeks before world governments are set to convene in Azerbaijan for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29), where climate finance is expected to be a key issue, the report calls for "new strategies and finance for implementation" in order to protect global public health from climate disasters.

"These must acknowledge climate change's effects on health and related systems, assess risks and vulnerabilities, and incorporate resilience to shocks," reads a joint brief by the Lancet Countdown and Médecins Sans Frontières, also called Doctors Without Borders. "Adequate, predictable, and unified climate finance for adaptation and technical support is urgently needed to enable ministries of health and their implementing partners to adopt forward-thinking strategies, integrate anticipatory actions, and enhance flexibility and agility in their operating models."

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said the report shows "we must cure the sickness of climate inaction—by slashing emissions, protecting people from climate extremes, and ending our fossil fuel addiction—to create a fairer, safer, and healthier future for all."

To shift resources toward a "zero-emissions future," said Costello, "people's health must be put front and center of climate change policy to ensure the funding mechanisms protect well-being, reduce health inequities and maximize health gains, especially for the countries and communities that need it most."