"Even Countries Where Just 3% of Households Have Air Conditioning"... Global Divide in Heat-Related Deaths Deepens

Air conditioning estimated to prevent 360,000 deaths a year; ownership just 3% in low-HDI countries
Clean energy investment rises, but fossil fuel subsidies persist
Experts: "Health-centered climate policies and stronger international cooperation are needed"

Health harms caused by climate change are falling unequally across countries depending on their access to energy and socioeconomic conditions, while countries' responses remain inadequate, a report has warned.

The 2026 Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, published in the international medical journal The Lancet on Oct. 28, said air conditioning prevented more than 360,000 heat-related deaths in both 2022 and 2023. However, deaths were concentrated in countries with low Human Development Index (HDI) scores, which combine health, education and income, where only 3% of households owned an air conditioner.

The report also noted that around 730 million people worldwide still lack access to electricity. It estimated that at least 2 million people died in 2023 from indoor air pollution caused by the use of solid fuels in homes, and said deaths associated with fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from fossil fuels reached 2.78 million annually.

Workers shield themselves from the sun with parasols at a construction site in Sokcho, Gangwon Province, on July 30. The Lancet's 2026 report estimated that reduced work capacity due to extreme heat resulted in potential income losses of about $1.07 trillion worldwide last year. Photo by Yonhap News.

The report also showed that policies to reduce reliance on fossil fuels remain at odds with one another. Last year, global investment in clean energy reached a record $2.1 trillion, twice the amount invested in fossil fuels. At the same time, fossil fuel subsidies in the 87 countries surveyed in 2024 totaled $906 billion, or about 10 times the revenue collected through carbon pricing, which charges for greenhouse gas emissions.

Mikel González-Eguino, a research professor at the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) in Spain, said, "Climate action is still not aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Policies that support the use of fossil fuels must be improved to accelerate the transition to clean energy."

Social interests are also coming into conflict in the process of responding to climate change. Key issues include who will bear the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and how to support groups that are harmed during the energy transition.

Kim Young-wook, a professor at Ewha Womans University, said, "The important question is not whether climate change exists, but how quickly and widely its impacts will emerge and which social groups they will affect most. We need to bring the distribution of responsibility and costs into public debate so that the response to the climate crisis is socially legitimate and fair."

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In South Korea, heat-related harm is concentrated among vulnerable groups, including older people and migrant workers in outdoor industries such as agriculture and construction, prompting calls for better preparations.

Min Hye-sook, a professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Konkuk University School of Medicine, said, "Until now, South Korea's climate-related health policies have focused on short-term responses to public health crises that have already occurred. Cross-ministerial governance with the authority to coordinate climate, energy and industrial policies as a whole must make health a shared goal of climate action and persuade those affected."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.