The worsening impact of climate change, as found in new Lancet report

People across the world are facing record-breaking threats to their wellbeing, health, and survival from climate change, which has raised temperatures to dangerous new heights, a new report from Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change has revealed.

Key Findings:

• 48%of the world’s land area faced extreme drought conditions last year.
• 151 millionmore people would be experiencing food insecurity due to such extreme weather events, compared with the years 1981-2010.
• 60%of lands were affected last year by extreme rainfall which unleashed floods and raised risks from water contamination or infectious disease.
• 512 billionpotential labour hours, worth $835 billion in potential income, were lost due to extreme heat in 2023.
• Last year, heat exposure put people engaging in outdoor physical activity at risk of heat stress (moderate or higher) for a record high of 7%more hours than on average in the 1990s.
• The average person experienced 50more days of dangerous temperatures in 2023, the hottest year on record, than they would have without climate change.
• The number of heat-related deaths in people over 65 last year reached a level 167%above the number in the 1990s. Without climate change, researchers would have expected the figure to rise by 65% from the 1990s.
• The hotter and drier weather conditions contributed to a 31%increase in the number of people exposed to dangerously high particulate matter concentrations between 2003–07 and 2018–22.
• The average annual economic losses from weather-related extreme events increased by 23%from 2010–14 to 2019–23, to $227 billion.