Exhaustion

Climate change can substantially affect temperature-related mortality and morbidity, especially under high greenhouse gas emission pathways. Achieving the Paris Agreement goals require not only drastic reductions in fossil fuel-based emissions but also land-use and land-cover changes (LULCC), such as reforestation and afforestation. LULCC has been mainly analysed in the context of land-based mitigation and food security. However, growing scientific evidence shows that LULCC can also substantially alter climate through biogeophysical effects.

Ambient air pollution is a major global public health risk factor. There is now broad consensus that exposure to air pollution causes an array of adverse health effects based on evidence from a large scientific literature that has grown exponentially since the mid-1990s. Air pollution damages most organ systems and is linked to many debilitating diseases, such as asthma, cardiovascular diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia, stroke, diabetes, lung cancer, and dementia.

• Heat effect modification by air pollution on cardiovascular and respiratory mortality was investigated across 482 cities.
• Heat effect was seen to be significantly modified by air pollutants PM10, PM2.5, O3, and NO2.
• This study is the most extensive research to date investigating the heat effect modification on cardiovascular and respiratory mortality.
• This is the first-ever study to deeply investigate effect modifications by air pollutants such as PM2.5 and NO2.

Heat and cold are established environmental risk factors for human health. However, mapping the related health burden is a difficult task due to the complexity of the associations and the differences in vulnerability and demographic distributions. In this study, we did a comprehensive mortality impact assessment due to heat and cold in European urban areas, considering geographical differences and age-specific risks.

Background: Epidemiological evidence on the health risks of sulfur dioxide (SO2) is more limited compared with other pollutants, and doubts remain on several aspects, such as the form of the exposure-response relationship, the potential role of co-pollutants, as well as the actual risk at low concentrations and possible temporal variation in risks.

• Present and future global PM2.5 and O3-related premature mortality is estimated.
• The present day global premature mortality is estimated to be 5.4 million.
• Bias correction increases global PM2.5-related premature mortality to 7.7 million.
• Emission reductions alone decreases premature mortality by up to 57% in 2050.
• Aging population increases premature mortality by up to a factor of 2.

Existing studies on the association between temperatures and cardiovascular deaths have been limited in geographic zones and have generally considered associations with total cardiovascular deaths rather than cause-specific cardiovascular deaths. Across a large, multinational sample, exposure to extreme hot and cold temperatures was associated with a greater risk of mortality from multiple common cardiovascular conditions. The intersections between extreme temperatures and cardiovascular health need to be thoroughly characterized in the present day—and especially under a changing climate.

The 2022 report of the Lancet Countdown is published as the world confronts profound and concurrent systemic shocks. Countries and health systems continue to contend with the health, social, and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and persistent fossil fuel overdependence have pushed the world into global energy and cost-of-living crises. As these crises unfold, climate change escalates unabated. Its worsening impacts are increasingly affecting the foundations of human health and well-being, exacerbating the vulnerability of the world's populations to concurrent health threats.

The report “Effects of Air Temperature Modified by Vulnerability Factors” was prepared as a milestone by researchers in the EU Project EXHAUSTION*. This report summarises the evidence on the interactive effects of high air temperature and various vulnerability factors, including the environmental, socio-economic, and individual behavioral factors on heart- and lung-related deaths and diseases (cardiopulmonary mortality and morbidity) across Europe

Identifying how greenspace impacts the temperature-mortality relationship in urban environments is crucial, especially given climate change and rapid urbanization. However, the effect modification of greenspace on heat-related mortality has been typically focused on a localized area or single country. This study examined the heat-mortality relationship among different greenspace levels in a global setting.