Lancet Report Proposes Climate Health Emergency Recognition

Formal recognition of climate change as a global health emergency is among the recommendations in the Lancet Countdown’s 2026 report. The authors also propose a new World Health Organization instrument for coordinating an international response. Both proposals remain recommendations, rather than an adopted emergency declaration.

The WHO describes an existing mechanism under the International Health Regulations for declaring a public health emergency of international concern. According to the agency, it covers extraordinary events involving health risks to other states through the international spread of disease, where a coordinated response may be necessary. Climate-driven events can qualify under those criteria, the WHO said.

The Lancet Countdown report, published on 28 October 2026, estimates that 710,000 deaths globally were associated with heat in 2023. That total is the highest in the report’s series, with climate change accounting for 71.5% of the estimated deaths, according to its analysis.

Those figures come from modelling, rather than a tally of deaths recorded individually. The report describes a framework drawing on mortality data from 129 countries and extending the estimates to the world as a whole. To calculate the portion attributable to climate change, the analysis compares the observed mortality burden against a temperature scenario in which human-caused climate change had not occurred.

A limitation accompanies the estimates: the model holds the relationship between heat exposure and mortality constant over time. According to the authors, leaving adaptation out of the calculation could produce estimates of later deaths that are too high if people adapt. If maladaptation occurs instead, the estimates could be too low.

For its comparison across periods, the report places average yearly heat-related mortality after the Paris Agreement took effect at nearly 36% above the average for the preceding decade. That finding concerns annual averages across those periods, while the 710,000 estimate relates specifically to 2023.

The mortality analysis forms part of a wider assessment of the connections between climate change and health. According to University College London, 146 researchers contributed to the report, which examines 54 indicators. Four indicators were added for the 2026 edition.

* This article is based on publicly available information at the time of writing.