Forecasting Climate Deaths

Nigel Howard collaborated with Professor Newman (Curtin) in a 3 year long project to estimate the lives lost due to climate change and to forecast the lives likely to be lost due to our historic and continuing emissions.  Their seminal paper “Forecasting Lives Lost to Climate Change – A Review” was published in the prestigious peer reviewed journal Sustainable Earth Reviews (Ref)

This work established a model of:

• emissions correlated with the UN 2024 population growth forecast
• incorporating scenarios for emissions reduction from 2030 to 2050 (Paris commitments), by 2060, by 2070 and continuing on the current reckless emissions trends
• global atmospheric CO2 concentration based on emissions net of natural drawdown (dissolving in oceans, photosynthetic, alkaline mineral weathering
• global mean surface temperatures (GMST) correlated with global atmospheric CO2 concentrations
• Disaster numbers, from the EMDAT disaster database compiled since 1900, correlated with global atmospheric CO2 concentrations for:
• Drought
• Wildfire
• Storm
• Flood
• Mass Movement wet and dry
• Epidemic

[Earthquake, Volcanic activity and Drought investigated but excluded for lack of correlation]

• Climate caused disaster deaths as the product of disaster numbers and average deaths per disaster from the EMDAT disaster database
• Undernourishment forecast based on correlating post 2013 Undernourished numbers with global atmospheric CO2 concentrations.  Starvation deaths are then assumed at the same ratio (1.2%) as declared in 2021 by the World Food Programme Director.
• Conflict deaths forecast based on correlating post 2005 conflict deaths (OWID) with global atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
• Air Pollution deaths forecast correlated with temperature in 2008 by Jacobsen
• Review of other available health related climate impacts revealed either lack of consensus between studies or lack of apparent climate correlation
• Summing deaths per year
• Extrapolating all trends forward for all scenarios to 2500 and compiling composite deaths and composite emissions
• Determining the cumulative deaths per cumulative emissions ratio for each scenario and the 95% confidence limits on all of the forecasts

There are some significant assumptions made in this modelling (detailed in the report) and large inherent variability and uncertainty in the results.  It is envisaged that this modelling will be updated and refined periodically as climate change worsens and more data arises.  This will improve confidence in the results and narrow the confidence limits.

These deaths will most likely be caused in the following ways:

Clarity Environment can provide advice on the climate deaths attributable to any product, service, investment or government or corporate policy for which the carbon or CO2-e emissions can be estimated.  We will provide this advice pro-bono to environmental advocacy organisations attempting to hold governments, corporations or investors to account for their true climate liabilities.