September 2025

The 2024 Europe report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change

Europe is experiencing unprecedented warming and an increase in extreme climatic events, including record-breaking heat, droughts, and floods, as seen in 2022 and 2023. The 2024 Europe report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change warns that without swift and drastic action, climate change will continue to accelerate, causing irreversible impacts on human health and well-being worldwide.

While some political progress has been made in Europe through initiatives like the European Climate Law and the EU Adaptation Strategy, the report argues that these efforts, along with international agreements such as those from COP28, are insufficient. Notably, the Euro 7 Emissions Standards and the Industrial Emissions Directive are still inadequate. The report also stresses the importance of considering equity and justice

The Lancet Countdown

The Lancet Countdown is an international research collaboration that tracks the health impacts of climate change and monitors the progress of countries in addressing the climate crisis. It brings together experts from various disciplines to provide an annual assessment of the relationship between health and climate change, aiming to inform policy and drive action.

This is the second report of its kind, and it tracks progress on health and climate change in Europe. It uses 42 indicators across five domains, with researchers from Climate-Health Cluster projects: CLIMOS, and IDAlert projects contributing to the Leishmania indicators.

CLIMOS project authors:

IDAlert project authors:

The methods behind indicators presented in the 2022 report have been improved, and nine new indicators have been added, covering leishmaniasis, ticks, food security, health-care emissions, production and consumption-based emissions, clean energy investment, and scientific, political, and media engagement with climate and health. Considering that negative climate-related health impacts and the responsibility for climate change are not equal at the regional and global levels, this report also endeavours to reflect on aspects of inequality and justice by highlighting at-risk groups within Europe and Europe’s responsibility for the climate crisis.

Read the full report in this link

Indicator 1.3.5: climatic suitability for leishmaniasis

Leishmaniasis is a climate-sensitive zoonotic disease caused by Leishmania parasites and transmitted by female Phlebotomine sandflies. Cutaneous (most common and causes skin sores) and visceral (rarer, systemic, and with high fatality) leishmaniasis, caused by Leishmania infantum, are endemic in parts of Europe, with the estimated number of cutaneous and visceral leishmaniasis cases amounting to 1100–1900 per 100 000 in south-eastern Europe and 10 000–17 000 in western Europe. However, notification of cases is not compulsory, and under-reporting and imported cases are common. Sandfly species tend to be located in regions with periodic temperatures above 15°C, although optimum climatic conditions for vector activity and parasite development vary between species. Under future climate change, many sandfly species are expected to further expand their range in Europe; geographical extensions into northern regions and higher altitudes are already reported.

A nested machine learning modelling approach was applied to predict the climatic suitability for leishmaniasis. An initial set of models were fitted to presence and absence data for each sandfly vector species (ie, Phlebotomus perniciosus, P ariasi, P perfiliewi, P neglectus, and P tobbi) using bioclimatic indicators, land cover, and elevation. The outputs were used as covariates together with selected bioclimatic indicators to fit further models to two decadal periods (2001–10 and 2011–20) assessing spatiotemporal changes in the climatic suitability.

The number and spatial distribution of NUTS3 regions predicted to be suitable for leishmaniasis increased considerably from 2001–10 (55% of NUTS3 regions in endemic countries) to 2011–20 (68%), with new localities identified as suitable north of the historical endemic zone (figure). In non-endemic zones, four previously unsuitable NUTS3 regions in Austria and Germany are predicted to become suitable for transmission in the later decade. Increases were predominantly observed in parts of southern, western, and eastern Europe, and in western Asia, while remaining absent from northern Europe. Bulgaria, France, Italy, and North Macedonia displayed the most noticeable increases in the number of suitable NUTS3 regions in 2011–20 compared with the previous decade.