Health agency says climate crisis could cause 10,000 extra deaths a year in UK

The climate crisis could cause up to 10,000 extra deaths in the UK every year by the 2050s as a result of extreme heat, and bring a host of tropical diseases, a report by the UK Health Security Agency has warned.

- Tobi Thomas 

The worst-case scenario, published in a damning document from the UKHSA today, would see average temperatures rise by 4.3C, bringing an estimated twelvefold rise in heatrelated deaths by 2070. It adds that deaths could increase by one and a half times in the 2030s.

The figures come from the agency's Health Effects of Climate Change report, which examines the effects the climate crisis is already having on British health outcomes.

It says that diseases transmitted from insects - such as dengue fever or Zika virus - could become widely transmissible across the UK owing to the arrival of species that are native to hotter countries.

For example, the report suggests that the Asian tiger mosquito - which can transmit dengue, Zika and the chikungunya virus - has the potential to become established in most of England by the 2040s and 2050s, with most of Wales, Northern Ireland and parts of the Scottish Lowlands also becoming suitable habitats later on in the century. London could experience endemic dengue transmission by 2060, it adds.