Attribution Science Proves that Climate Change is Deadly

The idea that climate change Climate change kills, plants, animals, and people isn’t new, what is new is our ability to track this relationship with the help of attribution science.

Reuters reported on a study, which predicted more than 100 million will
die by 2030 if the world fails to tackle climate change. We are failing and people are dying. According to at least one report climate change is killing 400,000 people each year including 1,000 children a day.

A report from climate change advocacy group DARA indicates that global climate change and pollution from fossil fuels kills more than 5 million people a year. The study suggests that these deaths are on the rise. The DARA research predicts that by 2030 the estimated number of climate and pollution deaths will rise by 20 percent to 6 million per year. A 2014 study addressed the child mortality rate attributable to climate change. The research is titled, Quantitative risk assessment of the effects of climate change on selected causes of death, 2030s and 2050s.

While people in poorer nations are the most vulnerable and therefore the most likely to suffer, the western world is far from immune. An Oxford University study called Attributing human mortality during extreme heat waves to anthropogenic climate change, found that in the summer of 2003 hundreds of deaths in Europe are attributable to climate change. What makes this study noteworthy is the fact that it relies on attribution science and specifically draws the link between deaths and man-made climate change.

A recent Scientific American article offers an in depth look at the ways in which attribution science is revealing the link between extreme weather and climate change.

For a comprehensive review of attribution science as it relates to climate change click here.