Climate Inaction Now Harming Health More Than Any Single Disease, Costs India 1.7 Million Lives, $194 Billion Annually: WHO Lancet Report
SDG 3: Good Health & Well-being | SDG 13: Climate Action
Institutions: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare | Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change 2025, released on 29 October 2025 and endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHO), presents its starkest warning yet: climate inaction is now directly endangering millions of lives every year. Drawing on global datasets from 120+ institutions, the report traces how rising heat, pollution, and extreme weather are creating cascading threats to health systems, food security, and productivity worldwide.
Key Findings from the 2025 Report for India
Heat Exposure and Mortality
The data confirms that extreme heat is now a normalized and dangerous reality, with a significant portion directly linked to climate change:
Heatwave Days: People in India experienced, on average, nearly 20 heatwave days in 2024. Crucially, about 6.6 of those days were attributed directly to human-induced climate change.
Wildfire Impact: The health risks from shifting climate patterns are visible in air quality. An average of 10,200 deaths per year in India between 2020–2024 were linked to PM2.5 pollution from forest fires, representing a 28% increase compared to the 2003–2012 average.
Economic and Labour Productivity Losses
The climate crisis is now a major drag on India’s economy, primarily through labor productivity:
Lost Labour Hours: Heat exposure in 2024 resulted in a record loss of 247 billion potential labour hours across the country. This loss is a staggering 124% higher than the average observed during the 1990s.
Income Loss: This reduced capacity to work due to heat translated into an estimated income loss equivalent to US$ 194 billion in 2024.
Sectoral Impact: The hardest-hit sectors, which rely heavily on outdoor labor, were agriculture (accounting for 66% of all losses) and construction (20% of all losses).
Fossil Fuel Pollution and Premature Deaths
The report provides evidence of the direct public health benefits achievable through the energy transition:
Air Pollution Deaths: A shocking over 17 lakh (1.7 million) deaths in India in 2022 were linked to human-caused PM2.5 pollution.
Fossil Fuel Contribution: Of those air pollution deaths, fossil fuel use (including coal and liquid gas) was found to contribute to 44% of the fatalities. This highlights the clear opportunity for the Ministry of Health to use the energy transition as a major tool for improving public health outcomes.
The 2025 Lancet Countdown reframes climate policy as public-health policy. It argues that every tonne of carbon avoided now prevents avoidable deaths, and every year of delay magnifies systemic risk. The message for national governments is clear: health adaptation, air-quality reform, and energy transition are no longer parallel agendas but a single, interlinked survival imperative.
For India, the findings reinforce the urgency of aligning climate action with health policy. With over 350 million workers in heat-exposed sectors, losses to productivity and public health could become a chronic growth constraint. India’s ongoing frameworks — National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), National Health Policy, and National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) — provide immediate avenues to integrate:
Heat-Health Action Plans in all major cities and states;
Early-warning systems and climate-aware disease surveillance;
Cross-ministry coordination between the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare and MoEFCC for health-centred climate budgeting.
Follow the full update here: WHO News Release, 29 Oct 2025 | Lancet Countdown 2025 Abstract