Skip to Content News Archives Economy Energy Oil & Gas Renewables Electric Vehicles Mining Commodities Agriculture Real Estate Mortgages Mortgage Rates Finance Banking Insurance Fintech Cryptocurrency Work Wealth Smart Money Wealth Management Investor Personal Finance Family Finance Retirement Taxes High Net Worth FP Comment Executive Women Puzzmo Newsletters Financial Times Business Essentials More Innovation Information Technology FP500 Podcasts Small Business Lives Told Tails Told Shopping Financial Post Store Obituaries Place a Notice Advertising Advertising With Us Advertising Solutions Postmedia Ad Manager Sponsorship Requests Classifieds Place a Classifieds ad Working Profile Settings My Subscriptions Saved Articles My Offers Newsletters Customer Service FAQ News Economy Energy Mining Real Estate Finance Work Wealth Investor FP Comment Executive Women Puzzmo Newsletters Financial Times Business Essentials HomeFP CommentBjorn Lomborg: The WHO’s climate prescription is bad medicineHeat deaths are up, though mainly because old people are a much larger share of the population, while deaths from the cold are way downLast updated 1 hour ago You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.World Health Organization road signage in Kampala, Uganda. Photo by Hajarah Nalwadda/Getty Images filesAs a rare strain of Ebola wreaks havoc in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the World Health Organization is once again mixed up in climate advocacy. A high-profile WHO commission made up of politicians and green advocates last month urged the organization to declare climate change a “public health emergency of international concern.”Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman, and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorThis is a flashback to the 2010s when the WHO’s director-general named climate change the most important health issue of the 21st century. Not long after, COVID-19 arrived — and WHO’s preparedness and early response to a genuine health emergency were found deeply wanting.The lesson clearly was not learned. The WHO commission’s headline claim is that climate change poses a “catastrophic threat to human health.” Its key evidence comes from a Lancet study showing heat deaths in Europe are rising rapidly, reaching 63,000 per year. Even setting aside the peculiarity of a global health emergency built primarily on European data, the argument collapses under scrutiny.Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againEuropean heat death risk has risen 82 per cent since 1990. But the risk rises sharply with age and Europe has aged dramatically. Since 1990, the share of its population over 70 has increased by 78 per cent, so aging alone explains virtually the entire increase in heat deaths. Both the study and the commission simply ignore this.Textbook climate deception:Lancet report blames climate for tens of thousands of European heat deathsBut hides that increase almost entirely due to an aging populationAnd ignores cold deaths, which are down much, much moreRefs and documentation in 🧵 pic.twitter.com/jGexHxn2SC— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) May 2, 2026Any honest analysis of mortality would use age-standardized death rates, which make figures comparable over time. The WHO report makes no such adjustment. The Global Burden of Disease, the world’s leading mortality database, does. It shows that Europe’s age-standardized heat death risk has changed only marginally since 1990. Adjusted to reflect today’s population size and age distribution, the increase amounts to fewer than 850 additional heat deaths. The commission’s figures exaggerate the problem more than 50-fold.Textbook climate deception:Lancet report blames climate for 39,000 European heat deathsBut increase almost entirely due to an aging populationReal scientists show you the age-adjusted risk(unlike scare-mongering campaigners)https://t.co/TQpRwiP6Ex,… pic.twitter.com/oXCDNqBYN4— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) May 2, 2026The deeper dishonesty lies in what the report omits entirely. As temperatures rise, heat deaths increase but cold deaths fall. Cold deaths far outnumber heat deaths on every continent on Earth. Using the same age-standardized methodology that reveals minimal heat-death increases, rates of death from cold have nearly halved in Europe since 1990. At today’s population levels, that translates to roughly 210,000 fewer cold deaths each year. The WHO commission does not mention that cold deaths have declined by approximately 250 times as much as heat deaths have risen.Textbook climate deception:Lancet report blames climate for tens of thousands of European heat deathsBut it hides that the increase is almost entirely due to an aging populationAnd ignores cold deaths, which are down much, much morehttps://t.co/TQpRwiP6Ex,… pic.twitter.com/ActizOQ4bY— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) May 2, 2026The report’s second major claim is that climate change in Europe has made more Europeans food insecure. This strains credulity. Real food insecurity lies in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The claim also ignores the United Nations’ own projections showing the world on track for record cereal production. If the WHO commission were genuinely concerned about the world’s hungry, it would lead with those facts, not bury them.There is a cruel irony in the commission’s prescription. Climate policies have already made electricity three to four times costlier for consumers in Europe than in the U.S. and China, and more than a third of all Europeans now say they can’t afford air conditioning. Making even more aggressive emissions cuts would further raise energy costs, making both heat waves and prolonged cold spells even deadlier for those who cannot afford air conditioning or heating. Higher energy prices also raise the cost of fertilizer and mechanized farming, pushing more people in developing countries into hunger. This is a case where the prescribed cure is literally worse than the disease.The WHO director who convened the commission writes that “our citizens expect urgency from us” — as though he were an elected politician rather than a health official. What global citizens really expect from doctors is honest, evidence-based counsel, not clinical authority lent out for political purposes or public alarm manufactured by omitting the data that could defuse it.The WHO exists to prevent disease and protect human health. Declaring a climate emergency on the basis of cherry-picked, misleading statistics will not protect the world’s most vulnerable. Rather, it will erode the organization’s credibility further, divert attention and resources from genuine threats, and lend political cover to costly policies that harm the very people the WHO claims to champion.Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus, is a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and author of “False Alarm” and “Best Things First.” Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. 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