Pascal Soriot of AstraZeneca: ‘The climate crisis is a health crisis’

The man who led the drive to create a not-for-profit Covid vaccine is now focusing on the deaths caused by global heating and pollution

I speak as a healthcare CEO, but also as a nature lover and as a grandfather," Pascal Soriot, chief executive of Britain's biggest drugmaker, AstraZeneca, told King Charles III and a select audience during London Climate Week at an event in the gothic grandeur of Guildhall.

While the Covid-19 pandemic led to the loss of 7 million lives globally, Soriot says that the climate crisis and pollution cost us 7 million to 9 million lives every year".