Baku – Experts warn that climate change presents an already huge and still growing threat to human health worldwide.
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 1990s, just one of the recent all-time highs, the report said. Extreme heat leads to numerous health risks such as kidney disorders, strokes, adverse pregnancy outcomes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, organ failure and ultimately death.
Jeni Miller, executive director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, said “this year has underlined the growing impacts of a warming climate on people’s health and wellbeing”. She pointed to extreme heat leading to 700 deaths and more than 40,000 cases of heat stroke in India, “climate-exacerbated” rains causing a dam to collapse in Nigeria killing 320, and 48 out of 50 US states “experiencing moderate or worse drought”.
Spain is meanwhile still recovering from its deadliest floods in a generation, while parts of the United States and Cuba are picking up the pieces after recent hurricanes. Droughts, floods and other extreme weather events are also expected to hit global crops, leading to rising hunger in many regions.