Lancet report  Countdown on Health and Climate Change new and updated indicators reveal that governments and companies continue fuelling the fire with persistent investments in fossil fuels, all-time high GHG emissions, and staggering tree loss, reducing the survival chances of people all around the globe. In 2023, global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions reached an all-time high, 1.1% above 2022, and the proportion of fossil fuels in the global energy system increased for the first time in a decade during 2021, reaching 80.3% of all energy (up from 80.1% in 2020). 

While climate action is limited by the lack of funding, fossil fuel investment still attracted 36.6% of global energy investment in 2023, with many governments also increasing explicit fossil fuel subsidies in response to soaring energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In 2022, 72 of the 86 countries (84%) analysed in the report subsidised fossil fuels for a record net total of US$1.4 trillion (taking into account the contribution of both carbon pricing and fossil fuel subsidies), dwarfing any financial commitments in support of climate action made at COP28. These subsidies exceeded 10% of national health spending in 47 of the countries, and 100% in 23 countries. 

Against this concerning backdrop, the Loss and Damage Fund established at COP27 in 2022 to support countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, received initial pledges totalling the much smaller sum of US$700 million, which amounted to less than 0.2% of the estimated requirement every year. Similarly, the decade-long delay in delivering the comparatively modest sum of US$100 billion a year promised to support vulnerable countries cope with climate change has hampered progress and widened global inequities.

Bolstered by record profits, the world’s 114 largest oil and gas companies (covering 80% of all production projected by 2040) have increased their projected fossil fuel production levels since last year, which would lead to their GHG emissions exceeding levels compatible with 1.5°C of warming by 59% in 2030, and a staggering 189% in 2040, further reducing their compliance with the Paris Agreement. Worse still, 33 of these companies are expected to exceed their 1.5°C-compatible GHG emissions by over 300% in 2040. 

Added to this, new data from this year’s report estimates that almost 182 million hectares of forest were destroyed between 2016 (when the Paris Agreement entered into force) and 2022, equivalent to 5% of the global tree cover, diminishing the world’s natural capacity to capture carbon dioxide. The greatest tree cover losses were in Russia (35.8 million hectares), the USA and Canada (almost 15 million hectares in each country). At the same time, the rise in red meat and dairy intake increased diet-related deaths by 220,000 between 2016 and 2021, and contributed to a 2.9% rise in agricultural GHG emissions. 

Professor Stella Hartinger, co-author and Lancet Countdown Latin America Director at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, said: “Oil and gas companies – supported by many governments and the global financial system – continue to reinforce the world’s addiction to fossil fuels. In a world in which survival depends on phasing out fossil fuels, these short-sighted investments set us up for financial turmoil as we pursue a liveable future.

Harbinger added, “These perverse investments, coupled with the serious failure to make the necessary structural changes in the energy sector to support the net-zero transition, are jeopardising the economies on which people’s livelihoods depend, and leaving the health and survival of millions of people at risk.”