Climate change ‘kills 315,000 a year’

CLIMATE change kills about 315,000 people a year through hunger, sickness and weather disasters, and the annual death toll is expected to rise to 500,000 by 2030, a report said yesterday.

The study, commissioned by the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF), estimates that climate change seriously affects 325 million people every year, a number that will more than double in 20 years to 10% of the world’s population (now about 6.7 billion).

Economic losses due to global warming amount to more than $125 billion (€88.4bn) annually — more than the flow of aid from rich to poor nations — and are expected to rise to $340bn (€240bn) each year by 2030, according to the report.