Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1337 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here.
Preamble
The 2026 Lancet Countdown report on health and climate change brings the issue much closer to home. It makes a compelling case that climate change is already a major threat to human health, affecting how people live, work, eat, breathe and survive.
Titled “A Decade of Escalating Health Harms and a Decisive Moment for All,” the report marks ten years since the Paris Agreement entered into force. It brings together the work of 146 researchers from more than 100 institutions across over 30 countries. Its 54 indicators examine the health consequences of climate change and the effects of actions taken to address it.
Extreme Heat is Becoming a Major Cause of Preventable Deaths
The most alarming finding concerns heat-related mortality.
In 2023, extreme heat was associated with an estimated 710,000 deaths worldwide. More than 70% of this burden was attributed to human-caused climate change. The annual average number of heat-related deaths increased by nearly 36% in the decade following the Paris Agreement compared with the preceding decade.
These figures demonstrate that heat is no longer simply an inconvenience or a seasonal discomfort. It is a serious public-health hazard. High temperatures can cause dehydration, heat exhaustion and potentially fatal heatstroke. They can also worsen existing medical conditions, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, kidney disease and respiratory illnesses. Older people, infants, pregnant women, outdoor workers and individuals with chronic diseases are particularly vulnerable.
The economic consequences are also significant. Heat reduces the ability of people to work safely and productively, particularly in agriculture, construction, manufacturing and other outdoor occupations. For countries with large populations working in physically demanding jobs, this represents both a health challenge and a threat to economic productivity.
Drought and Water Insecurity Threaten the Foundations of Health
The report highlights another growing concern: the increasing instability of water availability. Extreme drought affected nearly 52% of the world’s land for at least one month in 2025, the second-highest level recorded.
Water is fundamental to human health. It is needed for drinking, sanitation, hygiene, food production and healthcare delivery. When drought reduces water availability, the consequences extend well beyond agriculture. Families may struggle to obtain safe drinking water. Healthcare facilities may face shortages. Poor sanitation and inadequate hygiene increase the risk of infectious diseases. Drought also affects food production and can contribute to food-price increases, malnutrition and household insecurity.
At the other extreme, intense rainfall and flooding can contaminate water supplies, damage sanitation infrastructure and displace communities.
The world is therefore confronting two interconnected problems: some regions are experiencing increasingly severe water shortages, while others face destructive floods and water-related emergencies. Both have serious consequences for public health.
Climate Change Threatens Food Security and Nutrition
Food security is another important dimension of the climate-health relationship.
Agriculture depends heavily on predictable weather, adequate water and suitable temperatures. Rising temperatures, droughts, floods and changing rainfall patterns can disrupt agricultural production. The effects are not limited to the quantity of food available. Climate-related pressures can also affect food quality, affordability and nutritional diversity.
Low-income households are particularly vulnerable because food represents a substantial proportion of their expenditure. When prices rise, families may reduce the quantity or nutritional quality of their diets. This can increase the risk of malnutrition, particularly among children, pregnant women and older people.
Food insecurity also has consequences for chronic disease. Families facing financial pressures may have fewer opportunities to obtain nutritious food and may rely more heavily on inexpensive, energy-dense diets. Climate change can therefore aggravate both undernutrition and diet-related non-communicable diseases.
Climate Change is Widening Existing Health Inequalities
One of the report’s most important messages is that climate change does not affect everyone equally.
People with financial resources can often protect themselves more effectively. They may have access to air-conditioned homes, reliable electricity, safe drinking water, private healthcare and the ability to relocate temporarily during extreme weather. Poorer communities often lack these protections.
A person working outdoors cannot always avoid exposure to extreme heat. A family living in an informal settlement may have limited access to clean water and adequate sanitation. A rural household dependent on agriculture may have few financial alternatives when crops fail. The result is that communities contributing relatively little to global greenhouse gas emissions may experience some of the most serious consequences.
Climate change is therefore not only an environmental issue. It is also a question of social justice, economic inequality and the right to health.
Air Pollution Remains a Major Health Challenge
The continued dependence on fossil fuels creates two related problems. First, burning coal, oil and gas releases greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Second, fossil fuel combustion produces air pollutants that directly damage human health.
Air pollution is associated with cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, stroke and premature mortality. Children, older people and individuals with existing respiratory conditions are especially vulnerable.
The report also identifies progress: reductions in fossil-fuel-related air pollution have helped prevent premature deaths in countries that have reduced their exposure. This demonstrates an important principle. Climate action can deliver immediate health benefits, not merely long-term environmental gains.
Cleaner energy can mean cleaner air, fewer respiratory problems and healthier communities.
Healthcare Systems are Themselves Part of the Climate Challenge
Healthcare facilities are expected to protect people from the consequences of climate change. Yet hospitals, laboratories, pharmaceutical manufacturing, medical supply chains and healthcare transport also consume substantial energy and resources.
The healthcare sector must therefore address two responsibilities simultaneously. It must become more resilient to climate-related emergencies while reducing its own environmental footprint. Hospitals need reliable electricity, adequate water, temperature-controlled medicine storage, effective waste management and emergency preparedness. Extreme heat, floods and power disruptions can interfere with these essential services.
A hospital that loses electricity during a heatwave may struggle to maintain critical care equipment, laboratory services, refrigeration and medicine storage.
The health sector must therefore become both climate-resilient and environmentally sustainable.
Progress is Happening, But it is not Enough
The report does not suggest that all climate action has failed.
Global investment in clean energy reached a record US$2.1 trillion in 2025. Health-protecting legislation has expanded, climate research has increased and more countries are incorporating climate information into health planning. Some governments have established climate-informed early-warning systems. These systems can help authorities prepare hospitals, alert communities and organise responses before extreme weather events occur. However, progress remains uneven and insufficient.
The report finds that the health harms associated with climate change are growing faster than the global response. Fossil fuel production plans remain inconsistent with the goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C. The central challenge is no longer a lack of scientific evidence. It is the gap between what is known and what governments, businesses and institutions are prepared to do.
Sum Up
The 2026 Lancet Countdown report changes the way we should think about climate change.
It is not simply about the environment our children will inherit. It is about the health of people living today. It is about workers suffering from heat stress, families struggling with water shortages, children facing food insecurity, older people experiencing heat-related illness and hospitals attempting to function during extreme weather. The report reminds us that protecting the climate is also a way of protecting human health.
The next question is therefore not whether climate change affects health. The evidence is increasingly clear that it does. The more important question is whether governments, healthcare institutions, businesses and communities will respond with the urgency that this growing health emergency demands.
Climate change is no longer only an environmental warning. It is a warning about human survival, public health and the future of our societies.
Concluded.
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Reference:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(26)01779-4/fulltext
