This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The 2026 Report of The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change finds that many of the health risks and harms of climate change grew faster in the decade since the Paris Agreement was introduced (2016–2025) than in the decade before it (2006–2015). Clean energy investment, health system leadership, more health-protecting legislation and growing scientific evidence helped deliver real health gains, but not enough to offset the rapidly growing harm from fossil fuel–driven climate change.
The report's authors call for climate change to be formally recognized and addressed as a global health emergency, and for health to shape both climate policies and funding priorities to prevent climate change. The 10th Lancet Countdown annual report, led by University College London (UCL) and produced in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and published in The Lancet, represents the work of 146 multidisciplinary researchers from more than 100 institutions across more than 30 countries. Published ahead of the 31st U.N.
Conference of the Parties (COP31), it tracks 54 indicators of the health impacts of climate change and the health effects of climate action, including four new indicators introduced this year covering the availability of water in land (indicator 1.2.2), health care sector greenhouse gas footprint assessments (indicator 3.5.2), climate-related health research funding (indicator 4.3.4) and legislative engagement with health and climate change (indicator 5.5). New this year, the report includes an updated media engagement indicator (indicator 5.1) and now also attributes estimated heat-related deaths to human-caused climate change (indicator 1.1.5). "A decade after the Paris Agreement, our findings are unambiguous: the health harms of climate change are growing faster than the world's response to them, and in many cases even accelerating," says professor Marina Romanello, executive director of The Lancet Countdown, based at University College London.
"Real progress has been made in clean energy, health system readiness and health-protective regulation, all of which are already delivering health benefits to local communities. However, progress has been too slow, too small, and isn't reaching those who need it most. That is why we are calling for climate change to be formally recognized as a global health emergency, with health placed at the center of every climate decision." Heat was linked to an average of 540,800 estimated deaths per year between 2016 and 2023, 68% of them (369,900) caused by climate change, up from 55% (219,100) per year in 2006–2015.
In 2023 alone, the hottest year in that period, heat was linked to a record 710,000 estimated deaths, exceeding those from malaria or HIV, with 71.5% of them driven by climate change. Altogether, climate change is estimated to have caused almost 3 million heat deaths between 2016 and 2023. Heat also reduced people's capacity to work productively in 2025, costing the global economy an estimated $1.07 trillion in potential income (0.91% of global economic output), the third consecutive year that losses topped $1 trillion.
Southeast Asia and Africa were hit hardest, with losses equivalent to 3.9% and 3.2% of GDP, respectively, compared with 0.2% in Europe and 1.5% in the Americas. The agriculture and construction sectors, both largely outdoor and physically demanding, absorbed the biggest share of the losses (38% and 29%, respectively), because heat directly affects people's labor productivity and puts workers' health at risk. The impact is particularly pronounced in Africa, where agriculture accounts for 71% of heat-related potential income losses.
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