GNV News 2025 year 10 month 31 day

On 2025 year 10 month 28 day, the World Health Organization (WHO) and The Lancet released “the 2025 report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change.” Based on 57 indicators developed by 128 interdisciplinary experts, this report provides the most comprehensive picture of how the current state of climate action affects health. According to the report, heat-related deaths have increased by 63% since the 1990s, reaching an annual average of 54 ten thousand 6,000 people between 2012 and 2021.

Of the 19 days with life-threatening heatwaves between 2020 and 2024, it is estimated that 16 days would not have occurred without climate change. In 2024, 61% of the world’s land area—299% above the 1950s average—was affected by drought. The number of heatwave days and drought months was associated with an increase of 1 hundred million 2,700 ten thousand people experiencing food insecurity across 124 countries analyzed.

Moreover, climate change is increasing the risk of infectious disease transmission. Due to changes in temperature and rainfall patterns, the climatic suitability for dengue has surged compared with 1951~60, contributing to the record high of dengue cases reported in early 2024, totaling 760 ten thousand.

While climate-change-related damages are increasing, insurance coverage for losses from extreme weather has declined from 67% in 2010~2014 to 54% in 2020~2024, leaving people affected by extreme weather without insurance coverage and worsening health vulnerabilities. The rollout of adaptation strategies to climate change is lagging worldwide, and WHO is calling for protecting people’s health to be positioned as the most powerful driver of climate action.

Learn more about recent climate change conditions and impacts→“The reality of exceeding 1.5°C: global climate change issues, measures, and Japanese media coverage“

Nepal, where initiatives are underway among farmers to learn how to cope with high temperatures and different rainfall patterns (Photo: Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT / Flickr[CC BY-NC-SA 2.0])