Hot weather killing nearly 550,000 people a year: Report

Soaring temperatures are killing nearly 550,000 people around the world each year, part of a heat death toll that has climbed more than 20 per cent on a population-adjusted basis since the 1990s, according to the latest edition of medical journal The Lancet’s annual report on climate and health.

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“That’s approximately one heat-related death every minute throughout the year,” said Professor Ollie Jay, a heat and health expert at the University of Sydney and a coauthor of the new report. “So this is a really startling number.”

It is the first year the journal has reported the total number of global heat-related deaths, which it calculated through recent advances in methods to estimate heat-related deaths and better access to detailed death data in different countries. The Lancet has previously shared percentage increases in such deaths.

The new numbers come during a year of record-setting temperatures around the world. In Europe, residents and summer tourists were scorched by heatwaves over the summer, while parts of Asia and the US were also gripped by extreme heat.