Climate change should be formally recognised as a global health emergency, with governments adopting coordinated long-term measures to protect populations from rising temperatures, researchers have urged in a new Lancet study, according to Channels Television.

The study, released on Wednesday ahead of the COP31 climate summit scheduled for November, estimated that heat-related deaths worldwide reached three million between 2016 and 2023, with human-induced climate change responsible for a substantial share of the fatalities.

The 10th edition of the Lancet Countdown report, compiled by 146 researchers from 30 countries, recorded approximately 710,000 heat-related deaths in 2023 alone. More than 70 per cent of the deaths were associated with human-caused climate change.

Marina Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown research project, said the scale of the fatalities underscored the need for governments to treat climate change as an ongoing public health crisis rather than a series of isolated emergencies.

She called for sustained interventions that would strengthen countries’ capacity to withstand extreme weather and prevent further health crises, rather than relying on emergency responses after disasters occur.

Professor Ollie Jay of the University of Sydney explained that researchers estimated climate-related deaths by comparing recorded heat fatalities with the number expected in a world without human-induced warming. He also noted that climate change had intensified extreme heat events, while severe drought affected more than half of the Earth’s land surface for at least one month in 2025.

The study further highlighted the economic consequences of rising temperatures, estimating that reduced labour productivity had cost the global economy more than $1 trillion annually over the previous three years. Southeast Asia and Africa experienced particularly heavy losses, equivalent to 3.9 per cent and 3.2 per cent of their respective gross domestic products.

Despite the mounting threats, the researchers identified progress in health preparedness and energy investment. Since 2016, 56 of the World Health Organisation’s 194 member states have strengthened their health and early-warning systems to prepare for extreme events.

Global investment in clean energy also reached $2.1 trillion in 2025, twice the amount directed towards fossil fuels. However, fossil fuels continued to supply about 80 per cent of the world’s energy, contributing to air pollution associated with 2.73 million deaths annually.

The report estimated that declining fossil-fuel-related air pollution had helped prevent approximately 323,000 deaths across at least 77 countries since 2016.

It also found that climate-related medical research funding rose sevenfold to $316 million in 2024, although 84 per cent of the funding went to researchers in wealthy countries, despite the disproportionate burden of climate-related health risks in less developed nations.

Romanello said the research had faced difficulties obtaining some data, particularly information on United States fossil fuel subsidies that had not been made publicly available. She added that geopolitical tensions had diverted attention from climate change and its health consequences, warning that continued inaction would worsen the crisis.