Healthcare in a Changing Climate 2025

$253 billion of treatment costs and $5.6 trillion of productivity losses could be avoided. Stunting, a major concern for child health, could be mitigated by over 45%, preventing 1.3 million deaths and saving over $753 billion in economic losses. The introduction of innovative medical interventions also holds significant potential for reducing healthcare costs in affected regions. For instance, vaccination programmes often demonstrate a positive return on investment by lowering healthcare system costs associated with avoided treatments. Additionally, improved diagnostics can prevent delays and inaccuracies in treatment. More effective and affordable treatment options have demonstrated significant potential to reduce healthcare expenses, minimizing the need for repeat visits or costly intensive care procedures. However, the introduction of innovative solutions will not serve as a panacea for healthcare costs. Significant spending will still be necessary to ensure access to new vaccines, diagnostics and treatments. Innovations from the life sciences sector addressing unmet medical needs could collectively help prevent up to 23% of healthcare costs, amounting to approximately $253 billion by 2050. Preventing adverse health outcomes indirectly contributes to a higher GDP for the global economy. With fewer premature deaths and a decrease in days lost to illness or lower productivity, new interventions could prevent approximately $5.6 trillion in productivity losses by 2050. Ultimately, life sciences interventions have the potential to prevent numerous deaths. By reducing disease incidences through prevention and ensuring timely and effective diagnostics and treatments, the severity of diseases can be reduced, hence lowering mortality rates. By 2050, this could result in the prevention of up to 45% of additional deaths from diseases exacerbated by climate change, translating to approximately 6.5 million lives saved. Stunting, a major concern for child health, could be mitigated by over 45%, preventing 1.3 million deaths and saving over $753 billion in economic losses. Interventions targeting malaria could mitigate 180 million DALYs and prevent over 3.6 million deaths by 2050, while saving $450 billion in economic losses. Dengue, another vector-borne disease, could see a global impact reduction of 63%, preventing 66,000 deaths and saving $89 billion in economic losses. Heat-related illnesses, another growing threat due to climate change, could see a 50% reduction in deaths, saving over 800,000 lives and preventing $3.5 trillion in economic losses. The effectiveness of such innovative life sciences interventions can be substantially improved if implemented together with advanced technologies and climate services. By utilizing enhanced digital tools that leverage data to predict disease outbreaks, communities and healthcare systems can achieve greater preparedness, enhancing the effectiveness of diagnostics and treatment, or preventing incidents altogether. Implementing these technologies and climate services alongside life sciences interventions could reduce health impacts by an additional 3.6% through 2050 — eliminating 74 million DALYs, $19 billion in treatment costs, $418 billion in productivity losses and 454,000 deaths by 2050. These numbers highlight the urgent need to address climate-sensitive health challenges and the opportunity to significantly alleviate both human and economic burdens through targeted solutions. This opportunity to act is not only about saving lives but also about ensuring long-term economic sustainability. By reducing the disease burden and associated costs, governments and businesses can allocate resources more efficiently, leading to healthier, more productive populations. The long-term benefits of mitigating these diseases go beyond immediate healthcare savings – they include fostering better economic growth and reducing poverty in regions most vulnerable to climate impacts. Addressing these unmet medical needs with innovative climate and health solutions is critical to building resilient health systems and supporting sustainable development in a rapidly changing world. Healthcare in a Changing Climate: Investing in Resilient Solutions 12