The Lancet Report: Climate Change Has Increased Health Risks

The '2026 Lancet Countdown' report, published by the journal The Lancet, stated that despite progress made since the 2015 Paris Agreement, climate-related health risks have accelerated globally and a health emergency must be declared.

Prepared under the leadership of University College London and in cooperation with the World Health Organization with the participation of 146 researchers from more than 100 institutions, the report estimated that extreme heat caused an average of over 540,000 deaths worldwide each year between 2016 and 2023, with 68 percent of these deaths directly attributable to climate change. It was stated that the loss of life associated with extreme heat reached approximately 710,000 in 2023 alone, and more than 71 percent of these deaths stemmed from climate change.

The report calculated that more than 1 trillion dollars in potential income loss was experienced worldwide in 2025 due to labor and production losses caused by extreme heat. Additionally, it was recorded that more than half of the terrestrial land on Earth was exposed to severe drought for at least one month in 2025. Although clean energy investments reached 2.1 trillion dollars, it was reported that fossil fuels continued to meet more than 80 percent of the global energy supply.