Climate change driving 'record threats to health'

GENEVA

Climate change poses a growing threat to human health in a variety of record-breaking ways, a major report said on Wednesday, the experts warning that "wasted time has been paid in lives."

The new report was released as heatwaves, fires, hurricanes, droughts and floods have lashed the world during what is expected to surpass 2023 to become the hottest year on record.

The eighth Lancet Countdown on health and climate change, developed by 122 experts including from U.N. agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO), painted a dire picture of death and delay.

Out of 15 indicators that the experts have been tracking over the last eight years, 10 have "reached concerning new records," the report said.

These included the increasing extreme weather events, elderly deaths from heat, spread of infectious diseases, and people going without food as droughts and floods hit crops.

Lancet Countdown executive director Marina Romanello told AFP the report showed there are "record threats to the health and survival of people in every country, to levels we have never seen before."

The number of over-65s who died from heat has risen by 167 percent since the 1990s, the report said.

Rising temperatures have also increased the area where mosquitoes roam, taking deadly diseases with them.

Last year saw a new record of over 5 million cases of dengue worldwide, the report noted.