Scientists are calling for climate change to be declared a global health emergency so governments treat it as a priority. The warning comes from the Lancet Countdown, a joint project of The Lancet medical journal and the World Health Organization, in its latest report. Marina Romanello, who leads the project, said climate change must be recognised and treated as a global health emergency to ensure human survival. The message comes ahead of the COP31 climate summit in Turkey, which opens on 9 November.
The Lancet Countdown has tracked the effects of climate change on human health for ten years, with more than 300 researchers involved. Its latest findings are damning: the situation has not improved over the past decade, and has in fact got worse. Romanello said the efforts made so far are too slow and too modest, and do not help those who need them most. She added that global geopolitical instability has pushed climate change and its health impacts down the list of priorities.
Since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, heat-related deaths have jumped 36 percent, killing 3 million people worldwide, the report says. The year 2023 was the most dramatic, with a record 710,000 deaths, making heat more deadly than malaria or HIV. Global warming is also weighing heavily on the world economy by cutting productivity, costing more than 1,000 billion dollars a year over the past three years. The impacts are uneven: Southeast Asia and Africa lose 3.9 percent and 3.2 percent of GDP respectively, against just 1.5 percent for the Americas and 0.2 percent for Europe.
The researchers found a considerable funding gap for the countries hit hardest by the climate crisis. Covering minimum health needs would cost 3.3 billion dollars, yet less than 35 percent of identified needs received a financial commitment in 2024. The Lancet Countdown is calling for an international emergency system like the one used for pandemics. The aim is to put human wellbeing at the centre of climate decisions, by speeding up cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and directing budgets accordingly.
Reference
Bomnéry, M. (2026, October 28). Réchauffement climatique : la communauté scientifique appelle à décréter une « urgence sanitaire mondiale ». L’Humanité. https://www.humanite.fr/environnement/accord-de-paris/rechauffement-climatique-la-communaute-scientifique-appelle-a-decreter-une-urgence-sanitaire-mondiale