Extreme heat could cause more than 10 000 annual deaths in the UK by 2050s, warn experts

Climate change will have deadly effects on physical and mental health if nations fail to take steps to mitigate the “emerging reality” of global warming, a new report from the UK Health Security Agency has claimed.

Annual UK deaths caused by extreme heat could more than double to 10 000 by the 2050s, mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever could come to the UK, and costs from heat related deaths linked to climate change could rise to almost £15bn a year in the 2050s, the report said.1 These warnings come in the context of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s established goal of limiting warming to below 1.5°C (no higher than 2°C)—a figure that is widely expected to be exceeded …