Lancet Countdown Urges WHO to Classify Climate Change as Global Health Emergency

A new report from the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change calls for the World Health Organization (WHO) to formally recognize climate change as a global health emergency. The report, published in The Lancet, highlights that the health harms of warming are expanding faster than the world's response, leading to record heat-related mortality, spreading vector-borne disease risks, and rising water- and air-related illnesses. It states that nearly three million people died from heat caused by human-driven warming between 2016 and 2023.