Lancet Countdown report calls climate change a global health emergency

27 October 2026

The 2026 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change was published in The Lancet ahead of COP31 in Turkiye. It tracks 54 indicators and states that climate change has become a global health emergency, asking that it be formally recognised as one. It reports that more than half a million deaths a year between 2016 and 2023 were linked to heat, that 68 per cent of those heat deaths are attributed to human-caused climate change, and that nearly 3 million deaths over 2016 to 2023 are attributed to a warming planet. The report was produced with the World Health Organization.