ISLAMABAD: As people across the world face record-breaking threats to health due to rapidly changing climate, Lancet Countdown in its annual report on health and climate change called for a global health-centred transformation of financial system to deliver rapid health and economic benefits.

The eighth annual indicator report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change revealed that people in every country face record-breaking threats to health and survival from the rapidly changing climate, with 10 of 15 indicators tracking health threats reaching concerning new records.

The report, developed in close collaboration with the World Health Organisation, represents the work of 122 leading experts from 57 academic institutions and UN agencies globally, including the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the World Meteorological Organ­isation (WMO).

Published ahead of the 29th UN Conference of the Parties (COP), the report provides the most up-to-date assessment of the link between health and climate change.

Lancet report calls out govts, companies for ‘fuelling’ climate fire, fears these actions can reverse limited progress

It also called out governments and companies for adding fuel to climate change and urged them to redirect investments from fossil fuels to drive a rapid and fair transition to a net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) economy.

According to the report, people were exposed, on an average, to an “unprecedented 50 more days of health-threatening temperatures” whereas extreme drought affected 48 per cent of the global land area - the second-highest level recorded.

The higher frequency of heat waves and droughts was associated with 151 million more people experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity than annually between 1981 and 2010, it said.

The report noted that 2023 was the hottest year on record, plagued by persistent droughts, deadly heat waves, and devastating forest fires, storms and floods, and disastrous impacts on the health, lives and livelihoods of people worldwide.

The report feared heat-related deaths were expected to exceed cold-related deaths in a high-warming scenario, adding such deaths among those over age 65 increased by a record-breaking 167 per cent above deaths in the 1990s, substantially above the 65 per cent increase that would have been expected had temperatures not changed (accounting only for changing demographics).

The Lancet Countdown report revealed that spike in temperature led to a record 512 billion potential hours of labour lost globally last year (a 49 per cent increase above the 1990-1999 average), with global potential income losses equivalent to US$835 billion.

Besides heat, 61 per cent of the global land area saw an increase in extreme precipitation events during the last decade, compared to the 1961-1990 average.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2024