Rising temperatures are impacting lives and livelihoods around the world. The WMO State of Global Climate report confirms 2023 as the hottest year on record by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Global average temperatures reached 1.45°C above the pre-industrial baseline. But 2024 temperatures are breaking last year’s record and are projected to be the first year above 1.5°C.

Climate change effects like extreme drought and heat waves are affecting human health. The 2024 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, an annual report published on 30 October 2024, highlights the rising health risks posed by climate change, with worsening effects worldwide. It tracks the relationship between health and climate change across five key domains and 56 indicators, providing the most up-to-date assessment of the links between health and climate change.

The report points to the delay in climate adaptation are making it difficult for people to survive the climate change impacts and highlights the dangers of the governments’ ongoing fossil fuel investments, calling it “fuelling the fire” and with inadequate funding for climate resilience, increases the health vulnerabilities in many regions.

The highlights from the 2024 report include:

Heatwaves and droughts, exacerbated by climate change, contributed to 151 million more people experiencing food insecurity in 2022 than in the baseline period of 1981-2010. This food insecurity is now extending to high countries.
Death rates, especially in older population, are increasing due to extreme heat. In 2023, heat-related deaths of people over 65 years of age reached the highest level recorded, 167% higher than in 1990–99.
Heat is also reducing labour capacity, resulting in a record 512 billion lost labour in 2023, a nearly 50% increase from the 1990-1999 average and equivalent to a record US$ 835 billion potential income loss. The loss of both labour and income is most significant in low-income and developing countries.
Extreme precipitation events are also becoming more frequent, threatening food and water security, sanitation, and infectious disease transmission and increasing the risk of landslides and floods.
Climate change is also changing the environmental suitability for transmitting dangerous infectious diseases.
Years of delay in implementing life-saving climate adaptation interventions are exacerbating the risks to people’s health. Only 68% of countries reported high-to-very-high implementation of the legally mandated capacities to manage health emergencies in 2023.
Despite these growing threats, governments continue subsidising fossil fuels to keep energy prices affordable. In 2022, 84% of countries studied allocated US$1.4 trillion of fossil fuel subsidies. These subsidies exceeded what they spent on health. The authors cite that these funds could be re-directed to support the transition to clean energy sources, protect vulnerable populations from soaring climate change risks, and enable a healthy future.
Global energy-related emissions reached a new record-high in 2023, and people worldwide remain reliant on polluting dirty fuels.
But despite the concerning findings, progress towards a healthy and greener transition is emerging. For instance, the health sector is increasingly responding to climate change’s health risks and impacts. The energy sector is also seeing some progress. Renewable energy-related employment has grown 35.6% since 2016, showing a more sustainable employment opportunity than those in the fossil fuel industry. The global share of clean electricity from renewables reached a record-high 10.5% in 2021. Deaths linked to fossil fuel air pollution decreased by 6.9% between 2016 and 2021.

The report urges more actions to build on this progress by redirecting funding from fossil fuels that harm human health and promoting a healthy and zero-carbon transition across all human systems, including energy, transportation, food, agriculture and healthcare.