At a press release in Sydney on November 6, scientists from the University of Sydney and 146 other researchers urged that climate change be declared a global health emergency, warning that its impacts on human health are accelerating worldwide, according to Xinhua.
The 2026 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change found that many climate‑related health risks grew faster in the decade following the 2015 Paris Agreement than in the previous decade. Heat exposure, it noted, was linked to an estimated average of 540,800 deaths per year between 2016 and 2023, with about 68 percent attributable to climate change. In 2023, the hottest year in the period, heat was associated with a record 710,000 deaths globally, more than 70 percent of which were due to human‑caused climate change, the report said.
In 2025, global clean‑energy investment hit a record $2.1 trillion, yet fossil fuels still supplied more than 80 percent of world electricity. Pollution from fossil fuels was linked to an estimated 2.73 million deaths annually, the report added. The report also estimated that heat exposure could cost the global economy $1.07 trillion in potential income losses and 573 billion potential work hours in 2025.