A new global report has concluded that failure to act on climate change is killing millions of people each year, Climate Rights International said today. The 2025 Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change paints a clear picture of suffering, warning that continued dependence on fossil fuels and failure to adapt to rising temperatures are together taking a devastating toll on people’s health.

The Lancet Countdown, an international, multidisciplinary collaboration providing the most comprehensive annual assessment of how climate change is impacting human health, found that climate impacts including extreme weather, toxic air pollution, and the spread of disease are having unprecedented effects. These impacts are straining economies, reducing labor productivity, overburdening health systems, and costing lives, threatening to undo decades of progress in global health and development.

“The data confirms what communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis have been telling us for years: climate inaction is a death sentence for the world’s most vulnerable,” said Cara Schulte, Researcher at Climate Rights International. “Every life lost to preventable harms caused by pollution or rising temperatures illustrates a failure of governments to respond to one of the world’s biggest threats to the fundamental rights to life and health.”

Of the report’s 20 key indicators tracked across health, economics, and policy, 12 have already reached record levels of harm due to climate change. Heat-related deaths have increased by 23% since the 1990s, resulting in roughly 546,000 deaths every year. In 2024, the average person faced higher exposure to dangerously high temperatures attributable to climate change. The most vulnerable populations, namely infants and older adults, experienced a fourfold increase in dangerous heat days over the last twenty years. Combined heatwaves and droughts pushed an additional 124 million people into moderate or severe food insecurity in 2023, while air pollution from wildfires alone killed a record 154,000 people in 2024.

The economic impacts are equally alarming. Heat exposure alone caused the loss of 640 billion potential labor hours in 2024, equivalent to $1.09 trillion in productivity losses. Rising temperatures are making it increasingly difficult for workers, especially those who work outdoors or in poorly ventilated areas, to do their work safely. A June 2025 Climate Rights International report on extreme heat and labor rights in Bangladesh highlighted some of these challenges, showing how rising temperatures and daily extremes are increasing absenteeism and causing workers to fall ill, collapse, and even die on the job. Similar patterns are emerging globally, as heat stress continues to pose a growing threat to economies, livelihoods, and basic labor rights.

Despite these alarming trends, governments around the world are failing to act. Countries like Argentina, Hungary, and the US—which the report notes is the world’s largest single historical contributor to climate change—have rolled back key climate commitments in recent months. In 2023, states around the world spent $956 billion on fossil fuel subsidies, more than three times the annual funding pledged to support climate-vulnerable countries. Russia, Iran, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and China each spent more than $50 billion in net subsidies alone; and fifteen countries, including Iran and Venezuela, spent more on fossil fuel subsidies than on their entire national health budgets.

“The world’s most powerful governments are subsidizing the public health and human rights emergency that is climate change,” said Schulte. “Instead of investing in clean energy and other sustainable, long-term solutions, they’re pouring nearly a trillion dollars into fossil fuels. And that choice is quite literally killing people.”

The report makes clear that this broader trend of government inaction has explicit human rights consequences. Rising temperatures, food insecurity, and collapsing health systems are threatening the rights to life, health, food, and an adequate standard of living for people around the world. These overlapping crises are compounding existing inequalities and increasing the risk of displacement, conflict, and social unrest.

Delays in adaptation, insufficient financial support, and declining foreign aid from wealthier nations are intensifying these threats, leaving millions of people at greater risk of climate-related social, economic, and health harms. The report calls for urgent, coordinated, and gender-responsive action to “reduce health inequities, respect and promote the rights and knowledge of Indigenous Peoples, and ensure the protection of vulnerable and underserved communities.”

Despite the scale of the crisis, the report finds signs of progress and hope. In the absence of sufficient national leadership, cities around the world are assessing health risks linked to climate change and developing concrete adaptation plans. Additionally, between 2010 and 2022, an estimated 160,000 premature deaths were prevented each year through reductions in coal-related air pollution. Renewable energy generation last year accounted for a record 12 percent of global electricity. And health data is increasingly being used in courtrooms to support climate litigation, reinforcing the fact that governments’ failure to act on climate change violates fundamental human rights, including the rights to life, health, and culture. Together, these advances demonstrate both the urgency and the potential for transformative change when science, policy, and justice align.

“Behind every number in this report is a real person whose rights have been denied,” said Schulte. “Governments and companies know what needs to be done, and they know the benefits reach far beyond climate alone. It’s time to prioritize public health over special interests and take action to protect lives, strengthen communities, and build a fairer, more sustainable world.”