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Report Details Record-Breaking Health Threats of Climate Crisis, Fossil Fuel Subsidies
"No individual or economy on the planet is immune from the health threats of climate change," said a lead researcher.
Oct 30, 2024
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."
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73% of Young US Voters Eager to Support Candidates With Bold Climate Agenda
Over three-quarters in a new survey endorsed the idea that the "future is frightening" and 62.9% agreed that "humanity is doomed."
Oct 18, 2024
More than half of young people in the U.S. are "very or extremely worried" about the climate crisis and an even larger percentage are motivated to do something about it, including at the ballot box.
The data came from a poll published on Thursday in The Lancet Planetary Health, which found that concerns about the climate crisis were impacting young people's decisions about their personal and public lives, with 52.3% saying they were "hesitant to have children" and 72.8% planning to vote for candidates who back ambitious climate policies.
"Climate change is causing widespread distress among U.S. youth and affecting their beliefs and plans for the future," the study authors concluded. "These effects may intensify, across the political spectrum, as exposure to climate-related severe weather events increases."
"There was no state sample where the endorsement of climate anxiety came in less than 75%."
The study was based on an online survey conducted between July 20 and November 7 of 2023. In what authors believe to be the largest of its kind to date, the survey considered 15,793 answers from young people aged 16 to 25 in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
The vast majority of respondents, 85%, were at least moderately worried about climate change, while 57.9% were very worried. Nearly two-thirds reported feeling anxious, powerless, afraid, sad, and angry about the climate crisis, while 51.2% felt despair. A smaller but significant number said that climate change was impacting their mental health and that worries about climate change were having a negative impact on their daily lives, at 42.8% and 38.3% respectively. Over three-quarters endorsed the statement, "The future is frightening," and 62.9% agreed that "humanity is doomed."
Many respondents anticipated the crisis to alter the trajectory of their lives, with 69.4% expecting it to impact where they would live, 66% expecting it to menace their health, 63.5% saying it would impact their future plans overall, and 65.5% saying it would outright make their lives worse.
However, many planned to take proactive steps to address climate change. In addition to voting, 68.2% said they would decrease their or their family's contribution to climate change, 67.4% said they would work for more sustainable employers, and 61.4% said they would join or back climate advocacy groups.
The climate crisis also shaped the respondents' thoughts and opinions, with 89.4% blaming corporations and industry for the emergency, 86% blaming the U.S. government, and 85.5% blaming other wealthy nations. Similar percentages put the onus on corporations, the U.S., and other wealthy governments to fix the problem. A full 71.9% of respondents agreed with the statement, "I don't want to participate in a social and economic system that harms the planet."
The survey results were consisted with past polls of young people. An earlier global poll, also published in The Lancet, found that 75% of U.S. respondents were moderately worried about the climate crisis and 46% were very worried. However, one thing that stood out in the most recent survey was how consistent the results were across state and party affiliation.
"One of the most striking findings of the survey was that this was across the political spectrum," lead author Eric Lewandowski, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine, toldThe Guardian. "There was no state sample where the endorsement of climate anxiety came in less than 75%."
In past surveys on U.S. climate attitudes, whether someone is a Republican, Democrat, or Independent has had a strong influence on how concerned they are about climate and whether or not they think the government should act on it.
However, the study authors noted, "Compared with these past reports, greater proportions of Republicans in this survey endorsed negative emotions and thoughts about climate change and the response of the U.S. government, and plans to vote for political candidates who support aggressive climate policies."
For example, while 92.6% and 86.5% of Democrats and Independents respectively said they were at least moderately worried about climate change, 73.5% of Republicans also said they were. While 83% of Democrats and 76.1% of Independents wanted the U.S. government to carry out a "plan to prevent the worst impacts of climate change," 69.1% of Republicans also did. And 62.3% of Republicans surveyed said they would vote based on a candidate's climate ambition, compared with 85.5% of Democrats and 74.5% of Independents.
Another factor that influenced respondent's climate feelings was whether or not they had experienced an extreme weather event, and this effect was not impacted by party affiliation.
"Despite baseline differences by political party, as respondents across the political spectrum perceived the impact of a greater array of severe weather events in their area, their distress related to climate change and their desire and plans for action increased," the study authors wrote.
Coming weeks after the devastation of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, the survey indicates that young people's mental health and well-being will consider to suffer as the climate crisis intensifies. This can be offset somewhat by giving these young people a chance to discuss and act on climate in their communities, schools, workplaces, and government. However, as with all climate impacts, the distress of young Americans has one overarching solution: rapidly phasing out fossil fuels to reduce emissions.
"These findings reinforce a theme identified in other research that climate change-related distress will continue to increase while climate change remains insufficiently addressed," the study authors concluded. "Accordingly, the response to address this distress must be for industries, governments, and policymakers to act at the necessary scale."
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Study Warns Human Health Still 'At the Mercy' of Fossil Fuels
"Further expansion of fossil fuels is reckless and the data clearly shows that it threatens the health and well-being of every person," one report author said.
Nov 15, 2023
Heat-related deaths could rise by 370% if policymakers and energy executives allow temperatures to rise by 2°C above preindustrial levels by the end of the century, a new Lancet study found.
The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change on Tuesday released its eighth annual report tracking the impact of the climate crisis on global health. It is the first to offer projections for the future. In particular, the report authors emphasized the need to phase out fossil fuels that are baking the planet, putting human health and the Earth's systems that sustain it at risk.
"The diagnosis in this report is very clear," Dr. Renee Salas, one of the 114 scientists behind the report who also works in emergency care at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, toldThe New York Times. "Further expansion of fossil fuels is reckless and the data clearly shows that it threatens the health and well-being of every person."
The report first describes how the climate crisis is currently impacting health. 2023 saw the highest temperatures in more than 100,000 years, and this has exposed more people to dangerous heat, including the most vulnerable. Infants younger than 1 and adults older than 65 were exposed to double the heatwave days that they were between 1986 and 2005. What's more, heat-related deaths for those over 65 have climbed by 85% compared with 1990 through 2000.
In the U.S. alone, heat-related deaths for those over 65 increased by 88% from 2018 to 2022 compared with 2000 to 2004, and approximately 23,200 elderly adults died of heat exposure last year.
"These numbers remind me of the elderly patients I see in my own hospital with heatstroke," Salas told the Times.
"This is an industry that is actually killing people in large numbers and making them ill in even larger numbers."
Yet as stark as the U.S. numbers are, the report also points to growing inequalities between health outcomes in richer and poorer nations.
"We're facing a crisis on top of a crisis," Georgiana Gordon-Strachan, who directs The Lancet Countdown Regional Center for Small Island Developing States, toldEuronews.
"People living in poorer countries, who are often least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, are bearing the brunt of the health impacts, but are least able to access funding and technical capacity to adapt to the deadly storms, rising seas, and crop-withering droughts worsened by global heating," Gordon-Strachan said.
The report calls out the fossil fuel industry in particular, and says that the world is moving in the wrong direction in weening itself off of oil, gas, and coal.
"In 2022, The Lancet Countdown warned that people's health is at the mercy of fossil fuels and stressed the transformative opportunity of jointly tackling the concurrent climate change, energy, cost-of-living, and health crises for human health and well-being," the report authors said. "This year's report finds few signs of such progress."
For example, the authors noted that the early 2023 plans of the world's top 20 fossil fuel companies would overshoot the Paris agreement goals by 173% by 2040.
"All our indicators on the fossil fuel industry are extremely relevant because this is an industry that is actually killing people in large numbers and making them ill in even larger numbers," report co-author Paul Ekins, a University College of London economist, toldThe Associated Press.
If this level of inaction continues, the report's current indicators "could be just an early symptom of a very dangerous future unless we tackle climate change urgently," Lancet Countdown executive director Marina Romanello told AP .
If temperatures rise to 2°C above preindustrial levels by 2100, every health hazard tracked by the report will increase, Axios reported.
In this case, heat-related deaths would rise by 370% for people over 65 by mid-century and 683% by the last two decades of the century. If world leaders don't do anything to either prevent or adapt to climate change, those numbers would rise to 433% and 1,537% respectively. In the 2°C scenario, labor loss due to heat would rise by 50% by mid-century and heatwaves could push 524.9 million more people into food insecurity.
The risk of infectious diseases would also increase, with the ideal coastal conditions for the Vibrio pathogen increasing by 17% to 25% and the chance of catching dengue increasing by 36% to 37%.
However, the report said it was not too late to take action. Rapidly phasing out fossil fuels would both reduce climate risks and prevent many of the 1.9 million deaths every year due to air pollution from the burning of dirty fuels.
"There is still room for hope," Romanello told Euronoews, adding that the planned focus on health at the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference, or COP28, presented "the opportunity of our lifetime."
"If climate negotiations drive an equitable and rapid phaseout of fossil fuels, accelerate mitigation, and support adaptation efforts for health, the ambitions of the Paris agreement to limit global heating to 1.5°C are still achievable, and a prosperous healthy future lies within reach," Romanello said.
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