There’s a reason we heard so much about extreme heat deaths over the summer: the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a “call to action” on extreme heat that prompted mandarins across his vast organization to issue warnings without letting the facts get in the way of a good story.
The World Health Organization trumpeted the disturbing finding that in Europe, more than 175,000 people die yearly because of extreme heat. That was a fourfold exaggeration. When called out, the organization quietly edited their online publication to remove the word “extreme” — only after media outlets had carried the catastrophic news. While it fixed the error online, it didn’t find room to mention that extreme heat is the smallest temperature risk for Europe, with cold killing 13 times more people. That wouldn’t fit the secretary-general’s call to action.
UNICEF, the organization dedicated to child welfare, was next to ring the alarm. It published a policy brief claiming 377 young people died in 2021 due to high temperatures across Europe and Central Asia. It didn’t mention that their data show annual heat deaths have more than halved over three decades, that cold causes around three times more deaths in these regions annually, or that heat is one of the least significant causes of death among this age bracket. For an organization devoted to child welfare, it should perhaps matter more that malnutrition claims 26,000 young people’s lives across the region yearly.
In using faulty data and telling skewed stories, WHO and UNICEF put political messaging ahead of data integrity to fit the narrow focus on climate coming from the secretary-general’s office.
Guterres could hardly be more alarmist. He pointed to heat deaths of old people globally increased 85 percent over the past decades, but he didn’t reveal that almost all of this increase is because the world now has 79 percent more old people.
In his emotional call to action, Guterres declared, “Extreme heat is increasingly tearing through economies, widening inequalities, undermining the Sustainable Development Goals and killing people,” and he claimed there is “a rapid rise in the scale, intensity, frequency and duration of extreme-heat events.”
This is not only alarming but also misleading. A landmark 2024 study on extreme heat and its effects on mortality reveals global heatwave days have increased over the last 30 years from 13.4 to 13.7 days — hardly a rapid rise. More important, the global extreme heat death rate is not increasing but has actually declined by more than 7 percent per decade.
Guterres explicitly blamed all extreme heat deaths on climate change, but this is blatantly untrue because almost all deaths caused by extreme heat are driven by the 13.4 days of heat waves that we would have endured 30 years ago. Since then, climate change has added 0.3 days and a fraction to the declining death rate. Suggesting otherwise is disingenuous.
In fact, if we were to freeze the world’s age distribution, correcting for ever more old people, extreme heat deaths have declined by 13.9 percent every decade over the last 30 years. The decline is largely caused by people being richer and having more air conditioning and electricity access.
This is the deeper problem with Guterres’ rhetoric. The best policy to avoid extreme heat deaths — which the world has done very well over recent decades — is to ensure more people can afford to live in cool environments with air conditioning. Strangely, the United Nations balks at such life-saving ideas. The WHO’s four-step guide on how to avoid the dangers of extreme heat doesn’t mention “air conditioning.” It suggests that people rely on “blinds and shutters” and “night air,” and spend a few hours in the supermarket to cool off.
Lowering energy prices so more people can afford air conditioning is the opposite of what Guterres is pushing. He insists the world’s “disease” is an “addiction to fossil fuels.” He demands that we keep global temperature rises under a 1.5 Celsius temperature limit, which would cost thousands of trillions of dollars, spike electricity costs and impoverish lives.
Perhaps the most damning indictment of Guterres’s “call to action” is that he exclusively focuses on extreme heat that kills 155,000 people globally each year. The secretary-general rarely talks about cold temperatures (unless it is to make the questionable argument that extreme cold is also caused by global warming). Cold kills 4.5 million people yearly, almost 30 times as many as extreme heat. In a more sensible world, Guterres would focus 30 times as much firepower on solving this bigger problem. (He would find that lower energy prices would help most.)
It is hard to avoid the implication that tragic heat deaths are simply a tool for the secretary-general’s climate alarmism. At the very least, he and the United Nations should get their numbers right.
Reprinted with permission by DC Journal by Bjorn Lomborg.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
It’s high time the U.S. drops put of the U.N.! Lets see if they can survive without the U.S. footing the vast majority of their funding.
No matter what the question, their answer is always: More Government, More Taxes, More Bureaucracy …
…And less accountability.
Excellent article. The UN lies about the Global Warming Scam just like the democrats do.
It’s amazing how “global warming” changed to “climate change.” Back in the 1970’s, the “experts” said that a global FREEZE was coming! These corrupt, money-grubbing socialists will literally say ANYTHING to rake in power and big bucks! I, for one, look skeptically at all “experts.”
The scam (generated to amplify governmental control) will continue, regardless of evidence, or the lack of it! The great irony here is that an increase in CO2 would actually be a very good thing for the planet! Sadly, governments can’t tax and control based on good things.
Thousands of people die from drug overdose, what is the opinion of this criminal organization on that fact?
I’ll bet these alarmists don’t curtail their energy use out of sympathy to those who cannot afford the luxury of heat or air-conditioned environments, nor do they care what fuels their amenities. Lead by example instead of shameful rhetoric.
Well, the good news is that the climate SCAM is about to be put to bed!
From the time we are all children, we are told countless lies about the beneficence of the United Nations, of all the wonderful things it has done, is doing now, and will continue to do for humanity in the future. It’s all hogwash. The United Nations was founded by the globalists at the end of WWII to be the headquarters, the locus, of the globalists’ One World Government/New World Order. The globalists and their Secretary General puppet will tell us whatever lies they want or need to tell us to lead us down the path to a One World Dictatorship, where they run the world for their personal gain and benefit and the rest of us serve as their slaves. Time for everyone to wake up to reality.
The U.N. is a failed organization plain and simple. The question American citizens should ask is, why are we still supporting this bloated and useless organization? They want everyone to gladly give up their national sovereignty for what? A global cabal of jackals?? Screw the U.N. and its bureaucracy.
Maybe the newly appointed U.S. representative to the U.N. can help bring some sanity to the foolishness that is now the U.N.
The United Nations has become a totally corrupt organization pushing a globalist agenda. We need to pull out of the UN, stop funding it, and kick them out of New York.
Hey Elon! Are you listening!
It’s time to dump the UN completely. Make them finance their own craziness and leave New York. Our money can be much better spent on our own people. From child trafficking to completely anti American bias, they’re no longer relevant in our world.
Please, let’s just leave the UN to their own terrifyingly incompetent devices and let them finance their own demise. We can do a lot for our own people with the trillions we’ve spent on that clutch of cuckoos. Clear them out of New York.
Get the US out of the UN!!!
Very few issues are harnessed for purposes of misrepresentation as much as global warming.
There is a simple solution but if it were implemented it would take the fuel out of his fire. This is key:
“Lowering energy prices so more people can afford air conditioning is the opposite of what Guterres is pushing. He insists the world’s “disease” is an “addiction to fossil fuels.” He demands that we keep global temperature rises under a 1.5 Celsius temperature limit, which would cost thousands of trillions of dollars, spike electricity costs and impoverish lives.
No energy…. no A/C.
The UN along with WHO are bloated bureaucracies with too much power and are not to be trusted. Their overriding focus is one world government. I’m pretty sure Trump feels the same way. It, like many of our federal bureaucracies, needs to be disbanded and rebuilt from the ground up. Maybe we can get Elon and Vivek to take a look at the UN too (joking), they will have their hands full internally. Can’t wait for the Department of Education to be shuttered. That is something this country has needed for decades. But I do see Trump cutting back on our overly generous funding to the corrupt UN like he did in his first term.
The U.N., is well past its pull date. Time to toss it out, because it’s starting to stink. I’m really tired of my money going to fund this Global Scam generator.
With any kind of luck, Trump will get us out of the United Nations. They need us, a hell of a lot more than we need them.
Adding tons of carbon to the atmosphere is about the only good thing China currently does for the planet and mankind.
Yes, and even worse, there is no historical evidence for CO2 at these levels being in control of climate, or even a dominant influence. And there is good evidence that we are not in control of CO2.
Get rid of the UN. We need to drop out of it, kick them out of the US, or at least make them pay rent for the buildings they use, and utilities. They think they have a charter to create a one world government. Until there are other worlds that we have to deal with, we do not need one government for the whole world. Just more power hungry wannabe dictators that want want to take down the US, because the free people of this country, and the fact that we are armed, free to live as we want, and can say anything we want to. And they are just plain jealous, and want to take it away from us.
It’s all political