Deaths due to climate change: 4 million people died in the last 25 years

Climate Change deaths: Toll to exceed 4 million by 2024. Discover Colin J's take on the tragic cost of rising temperatures.

By Wahid Bhat 03 Feb 2024

New Update

Climate Change Deaths | Nature's latest report states that climate change has killed 4 million people since the year 2000. Rising temperatures might kill 14.5 million more people by 2050.

According to the McMichael estimate, climate change is causing nearly as many deaths each year as the population of Geneva. By 2024, the total number of deaths from climate change since 2000 will exceed 4 million, which is more than the populations of cities like Los Angeles or Berlin. Sadly, very few of these deaths are recognized by the victims’ families or governments as being caused by climate change.

More than half of these deaths are due to malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, or malnutrition and diarrheal disease in South Asia, with most of the victims being young children.

Climate Change Deaths: How many people were killed by climate change?

Colin J. Carlson, the author of the article, argues that the cumulative death toll from climate change since 2000 is expected to surpass 4 million by 2024. He states that this figure exceeds the population of major cities like Los Angeles or Berlin. Nevertheless, he points out that people rarely recognize the victims of climate change, and they seldom acknowledge the crisis as a consequence of climate change.

According to a study commissioned by the Global Humanitarian Forum, climate change is currently causing 315,000 deaths each year. The study also predicts that the annual death toll will rise to half a million by 2030

Climate change is causing more deaths than we realize, but a comprehensive count of its toll is yet to be undertaken. The current estimate of 4 million deaths since 2000 is likely an underestimate, according to experts.

Wael Al-Delaimy from the University of California, San Diego, highlights that many countries, especially low- and middle-income ones, lack mortality data, which poses a significant challenge. Globally, the documentation of mortality is inconsistent, which makes establishing a clear link to climate change difficult.

McMichael’s research team counted how many lives diarrheal disease, malnutrition, malaria, cardiovascular disease (a proxy for heat-related illness), and flooding had claimed worldwide in the year 2000. Then, the researchers applied computer modelling to determine the percentage of those deaths that climate change had caused. They estimated that climate change accounted for 166,000 deaths that year.

Annual deaths due to abnormal temperatures

Region	Annual deaths due to abnormal temps
Africa	1.2 million
Asia	2.6 million
Europe	835,000
South America	141,000
UK	52,000
US	173,600
China	1.04 million
India	74,000
Australia	16,500

Annual deaths due to cold temperatures

Region	Annual deaths due to cold temps
Africa	1.18 million
Asia	2.4 million
Europe	657,000
South America	116,000
UK	44,600
US	154,800
China	967,000
India	655,400
Australia	14,200

Annual deaths due to high temperatures

Region	Annual deaths due to high temps
Africa	25,550
Asia	224,000
Europe	178,700
South America	25,250
UK	8,000
US	18,750
China	71,300
India	83,700
Australia	2,300

Climate Change deaths: Count challenges researchers

Some researchers want to know how many people die from climate change when a disaster happens, like a heatwave. They use a method called attribution science. They use math and computers to figure out how climate change affects the disaster. Then they use data to see how many people died from the heat because of climate change. But sometimes they don’t have enough data. Attribution science is useful, but it has some problems.

Professor Guo and his team from Monash University did a study on how many people die from cold and heat around the world. They looked at data from 43 countries in five continents from 2000 to 2019. This was the hottest time since before the Industrial Revolution.

But no one will act unless we change the narrative that climate change is still a future crisis to be prevented at the last second. Four million people are dead. They had names, families, dreams. Most of them were children. Every single one of those deaths was preventable.
— Colin Carlson (@ColinJCarlson) January 30, 2024

They found that cold-related death went down by 0.51 per cent, while heat-related death went up by 0.21 per cent. This means that fewer people died from cold and heat together. But this might change in the future, because heat-related death will keep going up as the planet gets warmer.

They also found that their study had more deaths from cold and heat than another big study from 2015. That study used data from 74 million deaths in 13 countries or regions and said 7.7 per cent of deaths were from cold and heat. Professor Guo said this shows that we need to use data from everywhere to know the real impact of cold and heat under climate change.

Most deaths will be indirect, not direct

A new report says that climate change will put a lot of pressure on healthcare systems around the world. "Because of rising temperatures, we expect that 14.5 million more people will die by 2050." This will also cause economic losses of $12.5 trillion. Healthcare services will need to spend an extra $1.1 trillion on treatments because of climate change.

The problems will be worst in the Global South. These areas already have limited healthcare resources and their governments may struggle to deal with the effects of climate change like floods, heatwaves, and storms. The report says that central Africa and southern Asia are especially at risk.

Climate change is changing the patterns of disease and death. Those who are already vulnerable, such as women, young people, older people, people with low incomes, and hard-to-reach communities, are most likely to be affected by the people.

The report indicates that climate change's indirect impacts, such as landslides causing injuries or death following floods, are more harmful than direct effects. Post-flooding conditions like damaged infrastructure, increased mosquitoes, humidity, and food shortages could lead to diseases and mental health issues. Predicting the most severe health issues from these would be malaria and PTSD, the report estimates these flooding-related health problems could cost $1.6 trillion.

The report states that floods rank as the deadliest climate-related hazard and predict they could cause an additional 8.5 million deaths worldwide by 2050. They also state that droughts, triggered by extreme heat, could result in over 3 million more deaths.

Furthermore, the report estimates that diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, and Zika virus could put 500 million more people at risk by 2050. It suggests these diseases might spread to regions such as Europe and the United States, where they are not common currently.