The 2023 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: the imperative for a health-centred response in a world facing irreversible harms

The Lancet Countdown, an international research collaboration monitoring the evolving impacts of climate change on health, reveals in its 2023 report again alarming trends in the health impacts of climate change. It warns that these risks could worsen steeply in years to come without action. With health matters gaining prominence in climate change negotiations, the report also highlights new opportunities to deliver health-promoting climate change action and a healthy future for all.

In 2022, The Lancet Countdown warned that people's health is at the mercy of fossil fuels and stressed the transformative opportunity of jointly tackling the concurrent climate change, energy, cost-of-living, and health crises for human health and wellbeing. This year's report finds few signs of such progress. With global temperatures at the highest in over 100,000 years, vulnerable groups like the elderly and young children face increased heatwave exposure, droughts jeopardize water and food security, and infectious diseases spread. Economic losses and strained health systems compromise our resilience, and amplify global health inequities. Projections indicate that delaying climate action will significantly worsen health outcomes, with heat-related deaths and infectious diseases set to rise. Despite the urgency, global efforts to mitigate fossil fuel emissions and reduce health impacts fall short. The report emphasizes the need for a health-centered approach in climate action, including prioritisation of health in upcoming international climate change negotiations, to secure a healthy future for all.