Climate change poses grave health risks to global workforce: ILO

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND — A new report from the International Labour Organization (ILO) reveals that over 70% of the global workforce, equating to 2.4 billion workers, face serious health hazards due to climate change. 

“It’s clear that climate change is already creating significant additional health hazards for workers,” said Manal Azzi, Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Team Lead at the ILO. 

“It is essential that we heed these warnings. Occupational safety and health considerations must become part of our climate change responses – both policies and actions.” 

A ‘cocktail’ of health hazards

The report, titled “Ensuring safety and health at work in a changing climate,” estimates a staggering annual toll—18,970 lives and 2.09 million disability-adjusted life years lost due to 22.87 million occupational injuries linked to excessive heat exposure alone.

However, the impacts extend far beyond heat, creating a “cocktail of hazards” resulting in cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory illnesses, kidney dysfunction, and mental health conditions.

The ILO report identifies multiple health threats tied to climate conditions, including UV radiation exposure, workplace air pollution, pesticide contact, and vector-borne diseases. These factors collectively result in over 300,000 deaths from pesticide poisoning and 860,000 from air pollution annually among outdoor workers.

There are also 1.6 billion workers exposed to UV radiation causing over 18,960 work-related skin cancer deaths yearly.

Rising exposure to extreme conditions

The research reveals that more than 2.4 billion workers are at risk of excessive heat exposure while working, marking an increase from 65.5% to 70.9% since 2000. 

Similarly, as global temperatures continue rising, 800 million people working outdoors in tropical regions face severe risks to their health and productivity, according to a study published in the Cell Press journal One Earth.

It stated, “We show that under an additional 1C of warming, 800 million people in the tropics will live in areas where heavy work should be limited for over half of the hours in the year.”