Climate change posing 'record threat' to human health with surge in dust storms and extreme rainfall

Every country now faces health and survival challenges due to global warming, says Lancet report

A man walks past the Kuwait Towers shrouded in heavy dust in Kuwait city. EPA

Climate change is posing record threats to human health, including a rise in sand and dust storms and changing rain patterns that put more people at risk of deadly mosquito-borne diseases like dengue.

Every country now faces threats to health and survival due to global warming, according to an annual stocktake study in The Lancet, which found 10 of 15 indicators monitoring health hazards have now reached record levels.

The data represents the most concerning findings yet since the Countdown on Health and Climate Change project began eight years ago, said Dr Marina Romanello, Executive Director of the Lancet Countdown at University College London.

“Once again, last year broke climate change records – with extreme heatwaves, deadly weather events and devastating wildfires affecting people around the world. No individual or economy on the planet is immune from the health threats of climate change.

“The relentless expansion of fossil fuels and record-breaking greenhouse gas emissions compounds these dangerous health impacts, and is threatening to reverse the limited progress made so far, and put a healthy future further out of reach.”

The report provides the most up-to-date assessment of the links between health and climate change, including new metrics which record extreme precipitation, tree cover loss, sand and dust storms, rising night-time temperatures and sleep loss, among others.

It found that sand and dust storms are becoming increasingly more frequent due to hotter and drier weather, leading to a 31 per cent increase in the number of people exposed to dangerously high particulate matter concentrations between 2003 to 2007 and 2018 to 2022.

“Meanwhile, changing precipitation patterns and rising temperatures are favouring the transmission of deadly infectious diseases such as dengue, malaria, West Nile virus-related illness, and vibriosis, putting people at risk of transmission in previously unaffected locations,” adds the report.

The transmission risk of dengue by Aedes albopictus mosquitoes rose by 46 per cent and Aedes aegypti by 11 per cent over the last decade, compared to 1951-1960. A high of over 5 million dengue cases were reported in over 80 countries/territories last year, it said.

People are also increasingly at risk from life-threatening weather events, with a 61 per cent rise in areas affected by extreme rainfall between 1961 to 1990 and 2014 to last year.

Extreme drought is also becoming more common, with 48 per cent of global land affected by at least one month of extreme drought last year – the second-largest affected area since 1951.

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“Extreme weather and climate change-related health impacts are also affecting labour productivity, with heat exposure leading to a record high loss of 512 billion potential labour hours in 2023, worth $835 billion in potential income losses,” says the report.

Last year was the hottest on record, with persistent droughts, deadly heatwaves, devastating forest fires, storms and floods, and disastrous impacts on the health, lives and livelihoods of people worldwide, said the report.

Heat-related deaths in people over the age of 65 increased by a record-breaking 167 per cent above deaths in the 1990s, substantially above the 65 per cent increase that would have been expected had temperatures not changed.

Throughout the year people were also exposed to, on average, a high of 1,512 hours of high temperatures posing at least a moderate risk of heat stress while undertaking light outdoor exercise such as walking or cycling, representing a 27.7 per cent increase.

Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions also reached an all-time high last year. The authors call on money spent on fossil fuels to be redirected towards protecting people’s health, lives and livelihoods.

“We see financial resources continue to be invested in the very things that undermine our health. Repurposing the trillions of dollars being invested in, or subsidising, the fossil fuel industry every year would provide the opportunity to deliver a fair, equitable transition to clean energy and energy efficiency, and a healthier future, ultimately benefiting the global economy,” said Dr Romanello.

It comes after a report released on Tuesday found that more than half of heat-related deaths in the summer of 2022 were related to human-induced global warming. Temperatures in Europe are rising twice as quickly as the global average, exacerbating health impacts, according to the study, by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, have been published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.