More than 20 years ago, the World Health Organization tried to answer a tricky question: How many people die each year because of climate change?
Its 2003 seminal report put the number at 150,000, with deaths driven by dangerous temperatures, extreme weather events, food and water shortages, air pollution and disease. A second report, a year later, came to a similar conclusion: around 166,000 deaths annually.
Those were almost certainly underestimates — probably by large margins. In the years since, researchers have uncovered scores of climate impacts that harm human health.
Now a team of researchers is preparing to update the WHO’s original estimate. They’ve dubbed the project the Global Burden of Climate Change Study, and they’re hoping to make it one of the most comprehensive climate-and-health investigations to date.
