THE 2024 “Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change” and the “10 New Insights in Climate Science 2024/2025” reports, both released last week, lay bare an urgent truth: climate change isn’t just an environmental challenge – it’s an immediate, pressing health crisis, and every fraction of a degree matters. These reports are not mere warnings; they are calls to immediate action for the health, security, and future of all Malaysians.
The impacts of global temperature rise are here, now, and affecting us daily. The Lancet’s “Countdown” reveals that extreme heat in Malaysia is at unprecedented levels. From 2014 to 2023, we experienced, on average, 10 or more extreme heatwave days annually – nearly double from prior decades.