The 2025 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, released today, reveals a sobering truth: failure to act on climate change is taking an enormous toll on human health and wellbeing.
Fossil fuel dependence, rising emissions and delayed adaptation are costing millions of lives globally – and Australia faces particular challenges as the climate crisis intensifies.
Macquarie University's Professor Paul Beggs, Director of the Lancet Countdown Oceania Regional Centre, is one of the international health and climate change authorities who co-authored the report.
"Without transformative action in the next few years, we will face a health catastrophe," Professor Beggs says. "The evidence is unambiguous: every year of climate inaction adds measurable burden to human suffering."
Now in its ninth year, the comprehensive health assessment was led by University College London in partnership with the World Health Organisation and 71 academic institutions and UN agencies worldwide. Analysing more than 50 peer-reviewed indicators, the report warns that, without urgent action, the global health crisis will continue to worsen.
Heat stress and labour loss
Australia is experiencing a dramatic surge in extreme heat exposure, with serious implications for worker health and the economy. In 2024, heat exposure resulted in the loss of approximately 175 million potential labour hours – 161 per cent more than the 1990-1999 annual average.
The construction sector bore the heaviest burden, accounting for 58 per cent of labour hours lost, translating into an estimated US$5.4 billion in lost income from reduced labour capacity due to extreme heat in 2024.
Beyond financial costs, the report illustrates how heat stress undermines livelihoods and the social determinants of health, creating cascading impacts on vulnerable populations who depend on physical work for survival.
Australia's heatwave intensity has increased by 37 per cent over the past two decades. Alarmingly, in 2024, people across Australia were exposed to an average of 8.1 heatwave days each. Of these, 5.4 days (67 per cent) would not have been expected to occur without climate change. From 2012 to 2021, the nation recorded an estimated 980 heat-related deaths annually – an 83 per cent increase on the 1990-1999 average.
Extreme weather threatening survival
Climate change-induced extreme weather events are degrading air quality, disrupting food and water systems, and elevating risks of respiratory, cardiovascular and infectious diseases across Australia.
The Lancet report reveals, from 2020 to 2024, 43 per cent of Australia's land area experienced, on average, at least one month of extreme drought per year, while weather-related disasters displaced approximately 22,000 people between 2022 and 2023, disrupting lives and placing enormous strain on health systems.
Bushfires, droughts, dust storms and severe weather continue to increase in frequency and severity, creating a relentless cycle of health crises that overwhelm health infrastructure. Bushfire smoke is particularly insidious, accounting for an annual average of approximately 250 deaths in Australia between 2020 and 2024.
Air pollution, largely driven by fossil fuels, compounds these threats: more than 3400 deaths in 2022 were attributable to anthropogenic pollution, 59 per cent linked to fossil fuels (coal and liquid gas). The monetised value of premature mortality due to air pollution in Australia alone amounted to US$14.9 billion in 2022.
Professor Paul Beggs, pictured, is Director of the Lancet Countdown Oceania Regional Centre and a co-author on the report.
"These are not abstract figures; they represent preventable deaths and unnecessary suffering," says Professor Beggs. "Yet Australia continues to prop up the fossil fuel industry through subsidies that undermine public health and climate action."
In 2023 alone, Australia allocated a net total of US$10.8 billion in subsidies.
The subsidy paradox
Australia had a net-negative carbon revenue in 2023, indicating that fossil fuel subsidies were substantially higher than carbon prices.
The report authors note that many nations globally have adopted financial architecture prioritising short-term fossil fuel interests over long-term public health, perpetuating a system that enriches polluters while citizens bear the health costs.
Professor Nadia Ameli, Lancet Countdown Working Group 4 Co-Chair, says, "If we remain locked into fossil fuel dependence, health systems, cooling infrastructure and disaster response capacities will soon be overwhelmed, putting the health and lives of the world's eight billion people further at risk."
This is compounded by the healthcare sector's own carbon footprint. In 2022, Australia's healthcare sector generated 30 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – a 13 per cent increase since 2016.
An all-hands-on-deck moment
Investing in renewable energy, supporting just transitions for workers, adapting health systems to climate impacts, and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies are prerequisites for a healthy future, according to the report.
As one of the world's largest fossil fuel exporters and a nation acutely vulnerable to climate impacts, Australia occupies a unique position to lead meaningful change, yet recent climate policy rollbacks threaten to undermine progress.
"Responding to the accelerating crisis requires an all-hands-on-deck approach involving policymakers, health professionals, researchers, industry leaders and communities," says Professor Beggs.
"Decisive climate action promises not only environmental benefits but profound improvements in human health and wellbeing.
"The question facing Australian policymakers is stark: Will we continue subsidising the systems that harm us, or will we embrace the transition that could save us?"
Adds Dr Marina Romanello, Executive Director of the Lancet Countdown at University College London: "The report offers no false hope. Without immediate, systemic change, the health crisis will intensify."
The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change was established in partnership with Wellcome. For further information, visit lancetcountdown.org.
