Pandemics, climate change ‘intensifying’ health threats

From small island states to urbanised powerhouses, every country on Earth faces "multiplying and intensifying" threats to human health as climate change renders future pandemics and system collapses ever more likely, a major study concluded yesterday. 

A deadly mix of extreme heat, air pollution and intense farming are combining to produce the "worst outlook for public health our generation has seen", according to the Lancet's fifth annual report on the links between health and climate.

The assessment showed that the last two decades have seen a 54 percent increase in heat-related deaths among older people, with extreme heatwaves claiming close to 300,000 lives in 2018 alone.

While climate-linked phenomena such as tropical storms remain for now problems overwhelmingly faced by developing nations, the authors said extreme heat was already inflicting devastating damage to health in wealthier countries.

"The threats to human health are multiplying and intensifying due to climate change and unless we change course our healthcare systems are at risk of being overwhelmed in the future," said Ian Hamilton, executive director of the Lancet Countdown report.

It said that projected sea level rises caused by fossil fuel, farming and transport emissions could threaten to displace up to 565 million people by 2100, in turn exposing them to a range of health problems.

With more than nine million deaths attributable to poor diet each year, the expert panel behind the report found that mortality linked to excess red meat consumption had risen 70 percent in just three decades.

The authors warned that continued urbanisation, intensive agriculture, air travel and lifestyles powered by fossil fuels would render future pandemics such as Covid-19 far more likely.