Rising global temperatures now kill one person a minute, report finds

Rising global temperatures are now killing one person a minute, a report on the health impact of the climate crisis has revealed.

- Damian Carrington Environment editor

It said the world's addiction to fossil fuels also caused toxic air pollution, wildfires and the spread of diseases such as dengue fever, and millions of people each year were dying owing to a failure to address the issue of global heating.

The report, the most comprehensive to date, said the damage to health would get worse with leaders such as Donald Trump ripping up climate policies and oil companies continuing to exploit new reserves.

Governments gave out $2.5bn (£1.8bn) a day in direct subsidies to fossil fuel companies in 2023, the researchers found, while people lost about the same amount because of high temperatures preventing them from working on farms and on building sites.

Reduced coal burning has saved about 400 lives a day in the past decade, the report said, and renewable energy production is rising fast. But the experts said a healthy future was impossible if fossil fuels continued to be financed at current rates.

Dr Marina Romanello of University College London (UCL), who led the analysis, said: "The destruction to lives and livelihoods will continue to escalate until we end our fossil fuel addiction.