Climate change taking toll on human health Almost seven million premature deaths a year linked to air pollution, according to WHO Experts warn that climate change presents an already huge and still growing threat to human health worldwide, including record-breaking temperatures, extreme weather events, air pollution, and the spread of infectious diseases. Next week, amid what is predicted to be the hottest year on record and in the wake of climate skeptic Donald Trump's reelection as US president, the fresh round of UN climate talks will kick off. The COP29 negotiations will be held in Azerbaijan as the world continues to emit increasing levels of planet-heating fossil fuels, even as many nations have been lashed by devastating floods, droughts, heatwaves and storms.
"Climate change is making us sick, and urgent action is a matter of life and death," the World Health Organisation warned this week. Here are some of the ways that global warming affects health. The EU's climate monitor said this week that 2024 is "virtually certain" to surpass last year to become the hottest year in recorded history.
It is also expected to be the first year that is more than 1.5 °C warmer than the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average. Out of 15 ways that climate change impacts health being tracked by experts as part of The Lancet Countdown, 10 have now "reached concerning new records", according to the group’s latest report.
The number of over-65s who died from heat has risen by 167% since the 19.