The effect of climate change on health

Introductions and definitions

Climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity

In 2016 the World Health Organisation (WHO) published a report showing that just under a quarter of all human deaths (13.7 million people) were due to environmental factors.

A recent article in the United Nations News reported that extreme weather has caused two million deaths, at a cost $4 trillion over last 50 years (World Meteorological Organisation, WMO).
In 2021 the largest study on of global climate related mortality was published in The Lancet. The authors linked 5 million deaths a year to abnormal temperatures.
Children under 5 and adults between the ages of 50-75 years old are most impacted by the environment in which they live. Globally, approximately 1.6 million children under the age of 5 die from lower respiratory infections and diarrhoeal diseases.