What does the latest climate and health report say about heat-related deaths?

Deaths connected to exposure to very hot temperatures.

The 2026 Lancet Countdown report says annual average deaths linked to heat rose nearly 36% in the years after the Paris Agreement, compared with the decade before it.

A figure calculated for each year and averaged across several years.

They are estimates, not a list of individually confirmed deaths.

Each death has not been checked and proven as a separate case.

The report uses data and models to estimate how many deaths are associated with heat.

In this sentence, deaths are counted as connected to heat, though heat may not be the only cause.

It also estimates how much of that burden is attributable to human-caused climate change.

The report estimates how much of the health burden can be blamed on climate change caused by people.

It estimates that more than 70% of those deaths were attributable to human-caused climate change.

The report estimates that climate change caused by people was responsible for more than 70% of these deaths.

Because heat can cause serious health problems, including heat stress and heat stroke, and it can worsen heart disease and harm the kidneys.

A dangerous illness that happens when the body becomes too hot.

Older adults, women and people with existing health conditions are especially vulnerable.

More likely than others to be harmed or become ill.

The report also points to health risks from drought and other extreme weather, so the concern reaches beyond heat alone.

The concern includes more than heat; it also includes other dangers.

They call for climate change to be formally recognized and addressed as a global health emergency.

They want an official statement that climate change is a serious danger to health.

What would a new instrument add to the work already under way?

Work that has already started and is continuing.

The report says these benefits are not enough to offset the growing health harms, and fossil fuels still supplied more than 80% of global energy.

Reduce or balance the harmful effects.

The report presents clean energy and stronger health planning as ways to bring health benefits.

Cause improvements in people’s health.