Image: The Lancet Countdown collaboration at the Lancet Countdown 2024 annual meeting
The Lancet Countdown is launching a new phase of increased ambition, with strategic and financial support from the Wellcome Trust. As the urgency of tackling climate change grows, the Lancet Countdown will focus its efforts on producing rigorous scientific evidence to inform and guide a response that protects and promotes people’s health. The work is supported by a strategic partnership with The Lancet, and a close collaboration with the World Health Organization.
Since its inception in 2016, the Lancet Countdown has become an authoritative voice on climate change and health science. The academic collaboration brings together expert researchers from around the world to track the health impacts of climate change, and the health opportunities of climate action – engaging policy makers and health professionals with the evidence to inform a thriving future.
The new phase of Lancet Countdown will be guided by a new independent board chaired by the Rt Hon Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, bringing together world leaders from a diversity of backgrounds to support the Lancet Countdown in its journey of informing an evidence-based response to the biggest challenge of our times.
“Putting health at the centre of climate action represents the biggest opportunity of our lives to secure a thriving future for all,” said Rt Hon Helen Clark, Chair of the Lancet Countdown Independent Board. “The Lancet Countdown’s vast repository of experts and expertise will equip policy makers, companies, and communities with the evidence they need to prompt urgent and meaningful action to keep 1.5° alive.”
The flagship programme of work, grounded in annual indicator reports published in The Lancet, will evolve in the new phase. There will be new capacity for regional and national-level monitoring that can be optimally used at every level of decision-making to inform action; notably delivered through an expanding network of Lancet Countdown regional centres. There will also be renewed focus on how the Lancet Countdown can best share its expertise, including through indicator blueprints and guidance documents to support the development of standardised, high-quality indicators on health and climate change.
“As the world faces record-breaking temperatures and major climatic shifts, the work of the Lancet Countdown has never been more important,” says Alan Dangour, Director of Climate and Health at the Wellcome Trust.
“Over the past eight years, the Countdown has clearly demonstrated the various ways in which climate change is having an effect on our health. And now, as the Countdown moves into its next phase that includes strong global engagement and expertise, it is time for solutions and action. We must use the available health evidence to drive down greenhouse gas emissions and protect communities from current and future impacts of climate change.
“We are proud to support the Lancet Countdown, and together we hope to continue to drive lasting change to protecting the health of people now and in the future.”
Eight years of the Lancet Countdown
The Lancet Countdown has seen its collaboration grow to nearly 300 expert contributors from around the world; with global indicator reports becoming a key resource to guide the understanding of the connections between climate change and health. This has been complemented by the establishment of five regional centres led by local teams to drive regionally relevant monitoring and engagement.
“We are enormously proud of what we have achieved so far in working with the health community to ensure health is at the centre of how we respond to climate change, but there is so much further to go,” said Dr Marina Romanello, Executive Director of the Lancet Countdown.
“We have documented the devastating health impacts of a heating world, but now hope to go one step further – providing robust evidence at every level which informs how we can protect our lives and livelihoods now and in the future. We are on the cusp of defining a future in which we and our children can thrive.”
Publishing annually in The Lancet, and hosted by University College London, the Lancet Countdown also benefits from the support of 112 collaborating institutions including prestigious academic establishments and UN institutions.