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Research carried out within ClimAIr by the Finnish Meteorological Institute has contributed to two major Lancet Countdown reports this year: the 2025 global report and the 2026 Europe report. Both assessments track how climate change is affecting human health.
The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), building on work carried out within the ClimAIr Project, has contributed this year to two leading peer-reviewed publications on the links between climate change and health: the 2025 Lancet Countdown report at global level, and the new 2026 Europe report of the Lancet Countdown, published in The Lancet Public Health.
Both reports are part of the Lancet Countdown series, the most comprehensive independent scientific assessment of the health effects of climate change. Together, they confirm that research generated within ClimAIr is feeding into top-tier, peer-reviewed scientific assessments both in Europe and worldwide.
The 2025 Lancet Countdown report: "Climate change action offers a lifeline"
Published in The Lancet (Romanello, M. et al., 2025, The Lancet, 406(10521), 2804–2857), this global report brings together the work of over a hundred experts from dozens of institutions worldwide, tracking progress across dozens of indicators, from heat-related deaths to bank lending to fossil fuels, to provide the most comprehensive assessment yet of the links between climate change and health.
The findings are stark: a large share of the indicators tracking the health risks and impacts of climate change reached concerning new records in the latest year for which data are available. Even so, the report carries a message of hope: decisive, ambitious climate action can still protect lives and health systems worldwide.
Read the full report: The Lancet
The 2026 Europe report: "Narrowing window for decisive health action"
A few weeks later, ClimAIr-related research also contributed to the 2026 Europe report of the Lancet Countdown, published in The Lancet Public Health. This is the third edition of the European report in this series, systematically examining the links between climate change and health across the continent, drawing on data up to 2025.
Compared with previous editions, this new report introduces additional indicators, methodological updates, and a stronger focus on inequalities in the distribution of health risks across different population groups and regions of Europe.
Among the key findings, the data show a marked deterioration in health outcomes linked to heat exposure: nearly all monitored European regions recorded an increase in heat-attributable deaths over the past decade compared with the 1991–2000 reference period. The report stresses the urgent need for action to protect the health of people across Europe as the window for decisive action continues to narrow.
Read the full article: The Lancet Public Health
ClimAIr's role
Seeing research developed within ClimAIr, through the work of the FMI, contribute to scientific assessments of this scale, both globally and across Europe, confirms the value of the project in connecting climate science with public health evidence. These two consecutive contributions reinforce ClimAIr's commitment to generating rigorous knowledge that helps inform decision-making on climate and health in Europe and beyond.
Sources:
Romanello, M. et al. (2025). The 2025 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: climate change action offers a lifeline. The Lancet, 406(10521), 2804–2857.
Kriit, H.K. et al. (2026). The 2026 Europe report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: narrowing window for decisive health action. The Lancet Public Health.