Deaths From Climate Change Numbered in Tens of Thousands in 2023

Tens of thousands of people died in climate-change-influenced weather events around the world last year, according to a review of data, Samantha Harrington reported in Yale Climate Connections. By 2030, such deaths could hit 250,000 annually, the World Health Organization says. Featured in the article is nine-year-old Carter Vigh, who lived in British Columbia, where smoke from last summer’s wildfires exacerbated his asthma, killing him. His family has now partnered with the BC Lung Foundation to improve education about air quality and install air pollution monitors across the Canadian province to help prevent deaths. The foundation’s president and CEO, Chris Lam, said Carter’s parents did all the right things to keep their son safe from exacerbating events, but: “The one thing they did not have was accurate air quality information.”