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A new report on health and climate change paints the grimmest picture yet about what’s going on – not just that 2024 was the hottest year on record, but evidence that many governments have stopped even pretending to try to do anything about it.

The 2025 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change finds that more than half a million people die every year from heat-related causes, up 23 percent since the 1990s. Air pollution just from wildfire smoke was linked to 154,000 deaths in 2024. And 2.5 million people die every year because of the continued burning of fossil fuels, the report says.

But Dr. Tafadzwa Mabhaudhi, Professor of Climate Change, Food Systems, and Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Director of the Lancet Countdown in Africa, says it’s not all bad news. Communities, people acting in groups, city governments, and others can make a difference.

“We do have the power,” says Tafadzwa, who joins One World, One Health host Maggie Fox in this episode to talk about the report and what he sees for the future.

African nations, especially, have the opportunity to show the way as they build cities that take advantage of clean energy, says Tafadzwa, who is also a professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Future Africa, at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.

The report finds hope in this trend, and estimates 160,000 lives are being saved annually as communities shift away from coal and enjoy cleaner air.

Listen as Tafadzwa describes some of the successes in fighting climate change and what people and communities can do to encourage their governments to act.