Longer hay fever season in Europe among the health impacts of climate change

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-04-22 08:30

Australia; International; NSW

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The 2026 'Lancet Countdown in Europe' report examined 44 measures of how climate change is affecting people’s health and how European countries are responding through climate policies. The international team behind the report, which includes an Australian, says key findings include the extension of the pollen season in Europe by between one and two weeks, a rise in heat-related deaths across the continent, infectious diseases such as dengue spreading more easily, and increasing food insecurity linked to heatwaves, especially among poorer Europeans, all since the 1990s. They also found deaths from breathing air polluted by wood smoke at home rose by 4% between 2000 and 2022. The researchers also highlight that, despite drops in coal use and carbon emissions, with renewables supplying around a fifth of Europe's power in 2023, fossil fuel subsidies reached record levels that year, at €444 billion, partly in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The findings show climate change is already harming people’s health in Europe and the authors warn that these impacts will worsen without stronger global action to cut emissions and better protect communities. Fossil fuel subsidies must be phased out soon and widely, the researchers conclude.

News release

From: The Lancet

The Lancet Public Health: European pollen season one to two weeks longer on average between 2015-2024 compared with 1991-2000, according to major report on climate change and health in Europe

The 2026 edition of the Lancet Countdown in Europe report published in The Lancet Public Health journal examines 44 measures of how climate change is affecting people’s health and how European countries are responding through climate policies. The report highlights both the growing health risks and the missed opportunities to better protect and improve health through stronger climate action, including how:

The pollen season has become one to two weeks longer on average in 2015-2024 compared with 1991-2000, increasing exposure for people with hay fever and other allergies.

Almost all parts of Europe (99.6% of monitored regions) are estimated to have seen heat-related deaths rise in 2015-2024 compared with 1991-2000, with an average increase of 52 extra deaths per million people each year. Daily extreme heat warnings have also increased by 318% over the same period.

Climate change is making it easier for infectious diseases to spread, with the potential for dengue transmission in Europe being estimated to have increased by 297% in 2015-2024 compared with 1981-2010, contributing to more local outbreaks.

The health impacts of climate change are unevenly distributed across population groups and regions, with low-income households being 10.9 percentage points more likely to experience food insecurity linked to heatwaves and drought than middle-income households, and people in more deprived areas face higher wildfire risks and having less access to green space.

Although carbon intensity and coal use fell in 2023 and renewables supplied 21.5% of Europe’s electricity (up from 8.4% in 2016), fossil fuel subsidies reached a record €444 billion in 2023, partly in response to soaring energy prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Deaths linked to air pollution from burning wood and other biomass at home were 4% higher in 2022 than in 2000.

The authors say the report highlights that climate change is already harming people’s health in Europe and warn that these impacts will worsen without stronger global action to cut emissions and better protect communities. They add that renewed political commitment is needed to protect the health of Europe’s population, including the wide adoption of national plans to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, with only Denmark so far having adopted a comprehensive national plan to do so, and redirecting these funds towards climate action including the adaptation of health systems.

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Journal/
conference: The Lancet Public Health

Organisation/s: The University of Sydney, Heidelberg University, Germany

Funder: We thank the global Lancet Countdown and the Wellcome Trust (grant number 304972/Z/23/Z) for their financial and technical support. We acknowledge funding from the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement numbers 101057131 (Horizon Europe project CATALYSE), 101057554 (Horizon Europe project IDAlert), 101057690 (Horizon Europe project CLIMOS), and UK Research and Innovation grant agreements numbers 10041512, 10038150, and 10039289. We thank the EU Climate Change and Health Cluster, which includes the CATALYSE, IDAlert, and CLIMOS grants. KRvD acknowledges a fellowship from the British Heart Foundation Cambridge Centre for Research Excellence (number RE/24/130011). TA acknowledges support from the Norwegian Red Cross and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. RH and MSo acknowledge funding from Research Council of Finland for Vegetation Fires and Smoke Pollution Warning and Advisory System for Europe (grant 359421) and the EU Horizon projects FirEUrisk (grant 101003890) and ClimAir (grant 101156799). JP acknowledges funding for EU Horizon project SYLVA (grant 101086109) and Research Council of Finland project SPORELIFE (grant 355851). GECC acknowledges joint centre funding from the UK Medical Research Council and the Department for International Development (grant MR/R0156600/1). GECC and DL were supported by the Barcelona Supercoming Center AI4Science Fellowship programme funded by the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism-Next Generation as part of the Spanish Ministry’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. TR, JCM, and MC acknowledge support from Wellcome Trust (PATHFINDER2, grant number 313586/Z/24/Z and DESTinY, grant number 227165/Z/23/Z) and gratefully acknowledge the Ministry of Research, Science and Culture of Land Brandenburg for supporting this project by providing resources on the high-performance computer system at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (grant number 22- Z105-05/002/001). TJ gratefully acknowledges support from OP JAC - Project MSCAfellow7_MUNI (number CZ.02·01·01/00/22_010/0008854) financed by the Czech Republic’s Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and co-funded by the EU, support from the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 857560 (CETOCOEN Excellence), and the RECETOX Research Infrastructure (number LM2023069), financed by the Czech Republic’s Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, for supportive background. JB, HA, and NS gratefully acknowledge funding from the EU’s Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe research and innovation programmes under grant agreements 865564 (European Research Council Consolidator Grant EARLY-ADAPT), 101069213 (European Research Council Proof-of-Concept HHS-EWS), and 101123382 (European Research Council Proof-of-Concept FORECASTAIR). ISGlobal authors JC-X, HA, AA, JB, MC, TJ, MNie, NS, LS, JMA, and CT acknowledge support from grant CEX2023–0001290-S funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and support from the Generalitat de Catalunya through the CERCA Program. JM-U and JT acknowledge the funding of the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain) grant number PID2024–159955NB-I00. RL acknowledges a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship and the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (E4Warning, grant agreement 101086640, and IDAlert, grant agreement 101057554). We thank Herbert Kruitbosch, David Patterson, and Elmeri Niemi for their contribution to the production of the new litigation indicator. We thank Yasna Palmeiro Silva for the support provided for the adaptation indicators (2.1.1, 2.1.2, and 2.2.1).

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