A man walks on a hot summer day in Srinagar, India-controlled Kashmir, July 25, 2024
SCIENTISTS say four billion people — about half the world’s population — experienced at least one extra month of extreme heat from May 2024 to May 2025 because of human-caused climate change.
The extreme heat caused illness, death, crop losses and strained energy and healthcare systems, according to the analysis from World Weather Attribution, Climate Central and the Red Cross.
“Although floods and cyclones often dominate headlines, heat is arguably the deadliest extreme event,” the report said.
Many heat-related deaths are unreported or are mislabelled by other conditions like heart disease or kidney failure.
The study shows how much climate change boosted temperatures in an extreme heat event and calculated how much more likely its occurrence was because of climate change.
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Residents collect garbage and debris to burn in the town of Acoua after Cyclone Chido wreaked havoc on the French island territory of Mayotte on December 25, 2024. (Photo: Patrick Meinhardt/AFP via Getty Images)
“This exceptional year of extreme weather shows how dangerous life has already become… and highlights the urgency of moving away from planet-heating fossil fuels as quickly as possible.”
Just over two dozen climate-fueled extreme weather events killed at least 3,700 people worldwide and displaced millions in 2024, according to a report published Friday as the hottest year on record drew to a close.
The new analysis from World Weather Attribution (WWA) and Climate Central states that extreme weather “reached dangerous new heights in 2024” as “record-breaking temperatures fueled unrelenting heatwaves, drought, wildfire, storms, and floods that killed thousands of people and forced millions from their homes.”
“This exceptional year of extreme weather shows how dangerous life has already become with 1.3°C of human-induced warming, and highlights the urgency of moving away from planet-heating fossil fuels as quickly as possible,” said the two organizations, which examined 26 destructive weather events that occurred in 2024—a fraction of the hundreds that took place globally this year.
Those 26 events—from Hurricane Helene in the United States to the typhoon that hammered the Philippines, China, and Taiwan— caused close to 4,000 deaths, according to WWA and Climate Central.
“It’s likely the total number of people killed in extreme weather events intensified by climate change this year is in the tens, or hundreds of thousands,” the analysis states.
“Extremes will continue to worsen with every fraction of a degree of fossil fuel warming.”
Around the world, the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency added, on average, 41 additional days of dangerous heat this year, Climate Central found.
“The countries that experienced the highest number of dangerous heat days are overwhelmingly small island and developing states, who are highly vulnerable and considered to be on the frontlines of climate change,” the analysis says.
WWA and Climate Central said their findings should spur global action to shift away from fossil fuel, the burning of which is “the primary reason extreme weather is becoming more severe,” they said.
“Extremes will continue to worsen with every fraction of a degree of fossil fuel warming,” WWA and Climate Central added. “A rapid move to renewable energy will help make the world a safer, healthier, wealthier, and more stable place.”
Nearly half of countries endured at least two months of high-risk temperatures, data shows. Photograph: Fernando Bustamante/AP
Analysis shows fossil fuels are supercharging heatwaves, leaving millions prone to deadly temperatures
The climate crisis caused an additional six weeks of dangerously hot days in 2024 for the average person, supercharging the fatal impact of heatwaves around the world.
The effects of human-caused global heating were far worse for some people, an analysis by World Weather Attribution (WWA) and Climate Central has shown. Those in Caribbean and Pacific island states were the hardest hit. Many endured about 150 more days of dangerous heat than they would have done without global heating, almost half the year.
Nearly half the world’s countries endured at least two months of high-risk temperatures. Even in the least affected places, such as the UK, US and Australia, the carbon pollution from fossil fuel burning has led to an extra three weeks of elevated temperatures.
Worsened heatwaves are the deadliest consequence of the climate emergency. An end to coal, oil and gas burning was vital to stopping the effects getting even worse, the scientists said, with 2024 forecast to be the hottest year on record with record-high carbon emissions.
The researchers called for deaths from heatwaves to be reported in real time, with current data being a “very gross underestimate” because of the lack of monitoring. It is possible that uncounted millions of people have died as a result of human-caused global heating in recent decades.
A man walks on a hot summer day in Srinagar, India-controlled Kashmir, July 25, 2024
