A recent report from the World Economic Forum, a non-governmental organization that promotes public-private partnership on global issues, and Oliver Wyman, a consulting firm, projects that rising temperatures will “place immense strain on global healthcare systems” in the coming years.
Climate change will cause 14.5 million additional deaths by 2050, the report says, and cause $12.5 trillion in economic losses.
According to the report, these challenges will be felt most acutely in the Global South, where healthcare resources are already limited and governments lack the capacity to respond to cascading climate impacts such as worsening floods, heat waves, and storms.
The most vulnerable populations, including women, youth, elderly, lower-income groups, and hard-to-reach communities, will be the most affected by climate-related consequences, the report added.
In total, the report identified six weather events most likely to trigger negative health outcomes: floods, droughts, wildfires, sea-level rise, tropical storms, and heat waves. The authors examined the direct and indirect effects of each of these events.
