Older adults are generally amongst the most vulnerable to heat and cold. While temperature-related health impacts are projected to increase with global warming, the influence of population aging on these trends remains unclear. Here we show that at 1.5 °C, 2 °C, and 3 °C of global warming, heat-related mortality in 800 locations across 50 countries/areas will increase by 0.5%, 1.0%, and 2.5%, respectively; among which 1 in 5 to 1 in 4 heat-related deaths can be attributed to population aging. Despite a projected decrease in cold-related mortality due to progressive warming alone, population aging will mostly counteract this trend, leading to a net increase in cold-related mortality by 0.1%-0.4% at 1.5-3 °C global warming. Our findings indicate that population aging constitutes a crucial driver for future heat- and cold-related deaths, with increasing mortality burden for both heat and cold due to the aging population.

Asian Demographic Research Institute Shanghai University Shanghai China

Chair of Epidemiology Faculty of Medicine LMU Munich Munich Germany

CIBER de Epidemiología y Salud Pública Madrid Spain

Climate Research Foundation Madrid Spain

Department of Economics Ca' Foscari University of Venice Venice Italy

Department of Enviromental Health Instituto Nacional de Saúde Dr Ricardo Jorge Porto Portugal

Department of Environmental Health Sciences Yale School of Public Health New Haven CT USA

Department of Statistics Computer Science and Applications G Parenti University of Florence Florence Italy

Environment and Health Modelling Lab Department of Public Health Environments and Society London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine London United Kingdom

Environmental Health Science and Research Bureau Health Canada Ottawa ON Canada

EPIUnit Instituto de Saúde Pública Universidade do Porto Porto Portugal

Faculty of Environmental Sciences Czech University of Life Sciences Prague Czech Republic

Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health Rollins School of Public Health Emory University Atlanta GA USA

Institute of Atmospheric Physics Czech Academy of Sciences Prague Czech Republic

Institute of Epidemiology Helmholtz Zentrum München German Research Center for Environmental Health Neuherberg Germany

Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine University of Bern Bern Switzerland

ISGlobal Barcelona Institute for Global Health Barcelona Spain

Laboratório para a Investigação Integrativa e Translacional em Saúde Populacional Porto Portugal

Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research University of Bern Bern Switzerland

Population Council New York NY USA

School of Epidemiology and Public Health University of Ottawa Ottawa ON Canada

Yale Center on Climate Change and Health Yale School of Public Health New Haven CT USA

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