In Conversation: Why climate change matters for human health

The consensus among scientists is that we are in an era of global heating and extreme weather events, primarily due to the devastating effects of human action on the environment. Why are researchers concerned, and what are the implications for health?

The Lancet Countdown team is a group of over 120 leading experts on climate, public health, economy, and political science — among others — who have committed to monitoring climate change, particularly its impact on global health.

Since 2015, the year of the Paris Agreement, the experts affiliated with the Lancet Countdown commission have published yearly reportsTrusted Source assessing this situation and keeping signatory governments and decision-makers accountable for the commitments they have taken on following the Agreement.

The latest report, which appeared in The LancetTrusted Source in October 2021, records “deepening inequities” across all regions as global heating remains a concern. The report discusses the impact of climate change in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it emphasizes the concern caused by extreme heat events and related natural disasters that have occurred over the past 2 years.

Among the issues outlined in the Lancet Countdown report 2021, there is the impact of climate change on the livelihood of communities around the world, its direct and indirect effect on mental and physical health, and the way in which it contributes to the spread of infectious diseases.

These findings largely coincide with those outlined by another set of landmark reports on climate change — those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

According to the IPCC 2022 reports, at present, extreme weather events caused by human action are surpassing the resilience of some ecological and human systems, sometimes with irreversible effects.


Why is climate change worrying scientists, and what is its impact on health? In this In Conversation podcast, we spoke to two leading experts to find out.