More than ever, the climate crisis is becoming a health crisis. An estimated 5 million people globally die each year because of suboptimal temperatures, with a large proportion of heat-related mortality (37%) attributable to human-induced climate change. The last few years have been the hottest on record and high temperatures claimed over 60 000 lives in Europe alone in 2022, with cities the most affected a...
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In November, the 2024 United Nations climate change conference (COP29), will take place in Azerbaijan, a country where fossil fuels account for two thirds of its economy. Attendees will gather after a northern hemisphere summer that was the hottest ever recorded, with predictions that 2024 temperatures will reach 1.57°C above pre-industrial levels. The 2016 Paris Agreement committed countries to keep “th...
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The devastation caused by record-breaking extreme weather events in 2023 and 2024 shows the human costs of a failure to curb greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to rapidly growing hazards. In 2023, annual global mean surface temperature broke all records, reaching 1·45°C above pre-industrial times; this 12-month record has also been breached again since then. Rapid attribution studies identified the influe...
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