Report highlights climate change threats to health in China

The health effects of climate change in China are accelerating, posing an unacceptably high risk if global temperatures continue to rise, a report by the Lancet medical journal said on Thursday.

Heat wave-related mortality quadrupled from 1990 to 2019, reaching 26,800 deaths last year, the report said.

The first report of its kind by the journal on the links between health and climate change in China, it was unveiled by the Lancet Countdown Centre for Asia at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

The report also said people endured an average of 13 more heat wave days last year than in the early 2000s and that posed a special health risk for those aged 65 and above. It added that climate change had also increased dengue fever risks over the past 50 years.

It said, however, that by aligning pandemic recovery and climate plans with the country's pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, China can protect public health and promote economic sustainability as well as preserving the planet.

"The enormous potential for improving public health in the immediate and near term by tackling climate change can already be detected in the effects of policy shifts," it said.

It said a reduction in coal's share of total primary energy supply amid surging investment in renewable energy helped China reduce the annual average density of PM2.5 — tiny particulate matter that is hazardous to health — by 28 percent in urban areas from 2015 to 2019, resulting in 90,000 fewer PM2.5-related deaths a year.

Such gains are only a glimpse of what is possible, it said, as coal still accounts for 59 percent of China's primary energy supply and 42 percent of the country's population still live in areas that fail to meet World Health Organization standards for air pollution.