Two recent studies – one published by CMCC and the other one by the Lancet – show again that actually doing something to curb our global warming problem would save millions of lives and save trillons of dollars to our economies.
The Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC, from Italy) published a report in November reminding us all of the obvious :
” pursuing net-zero climate policies and avoiding temporary overshoot of the 1.5°C temperature limit could prevent 207,000 premature deaths and save $2,269 billion USD in economic damages by 2030 by improving air quality. “
“The research highlights that ambitious climate action not only limits global warming but also delivers immediate health and economic co-benefits, providing strong evidence for the importance of stringent mitigation policies worldwide.“
Please check out the press release for more details on how this would be particularly beneficial for countries with high population density and air pollution such as China and India.
Another study, this time from the Lancet provides further evidence that instead of backtracking on the meager stuff we have done to actually stop or slow down our climate from warming, we should double or triple down on action. As the World Economic Forum mentions :
“Rising temperatures have pushed 12 of 20 key indicators tracking health threats related to climate change to record levels in the past year, according to the 2025 Lancet Countdown report.
The findings explore how climate inaction is costing lives, straining health systems and undermining economies.
Higher temperatures have led to a 63% increase in heat-related deaths since the 1990s, with an estimated 546,000 average annual deaths from 2012 to 2021, meaning one person dies every minute from extreme heat.”
Other key findings include:
- 124 million people faced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2023 due to droughts and heatwaves.
- 640 billion labour hours were lost in 2024, with productivity losses equivalent to $1.09 trillion.
- $261 billion total costs of heat-related deaths among older adults.
“The climate crisis is a health crisis. Every fraction of a degree of warming costs lives and livelihoods,”
What boggles the mind is that each new study for the past twenty or thirty years have amounted to the same message : yes, acting meaningfully on climate pays, not only in terms of money saved but also in terms of lives saved. If we were rational we would have embraced climate change mitigation even before I was born – in the 1980s – or when I was a teen and the first Conferences of Parties were taking place in the 1990s. Yet, here we are.
I would love to be wrong but I am not expecting anything from the UNFCC COP30 taking place in Brazil right now. Granted, the so-called Paris Accord have stallen greenhouse gases emissions growth and significant amounts of money have been invested in the global energy transition since, but all this is a far cry from rapid decrease of our greenhouse gases emissions we should be witnessing right now.
Solar, wind and other renewables are not replacing fossil fuels, and this despite their stratospheric growth. Our economic models are still base on consumerism and infinite growth. Will this change ? Will we embrace energy efficiency, conservation and sobriety (sufficiency) ?
