Guardian’s Mosquito Scare Busted: Climate Change Not Bringing Tropical Diseases to UK

In a May 23 article “Climate change could bring insect-borne tropical diseases to UK, scientists warn,” The Guardian asserts that rising global temperatures are making Britain more hospitable to tropical mosquito-borne diseases like dengue, West Nile virus, and chikungunya. This claim is a lie. England’s climate has been suitable for the mosquitos bearing “tropical” diseases for centuries, with malaria, then commonly referred to as “augue” or “march fever,” being endemic across England even during the little ice age from the 15^th through the 19^th centuries. It was largely eradicated in the 20^th century with the draining of wetlands and improved housing. Also, a thorough examination of existing scientific evidence shows that while climate can play a role in the spread of mosquito-borne diseases, the actual drivers of disease spread are primarily human movement, infrastructure, sanitation, and public health responses, not a mild warming trend.

“Climate change could make the UK vulnerable to insect-transmitted tropical diseases that were previously only found in hot countries, scientists have warned, urging ministers to redouble efforts to contain their spread abroad,” writes The Guardian, apparently unaware that malaria and other mosquito-carried illnesses were common in England throughout history until fairly recent times.

The Guardian article leans heavily on speculative projections about future climate conditions, quoting experts who cite worst-case emissions scenarios (temperature increases of 4–5°C) and suggest that “climate change is making the UK more hospitable” to mosquito vectors. Yet even those quoted, such as Dr. Robert Jones of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, admit, “[w]e are unlikely to see a dramatic surge in tropical diseases.” That observation undermines The Guardian’s entire climate alarmist framing of the story.

The article also acknowledges there is currently no human transmission of West Nile virus in the UK, and that the necessary mosquito vectors (e.g., Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus) are not established in sufficient numbers to pose a significant risk. This key fact contradicts the article’s headline and premise.

This isn’t the first time the mainstream media has made wild, unsubstantiated claims about climate change and mosquito-borne disease. Climate Realism has repeatedly debunked this narrative:

• Mainstream Media Wrong: Climate Change Isn’t Spreading Malaria to New Places – Shows how malaria’s presence and reappearance in places like Florida are due to human factors and poor vector control, not warming.
• Stop Misinforming About Malaria’s Spread – Washington Post – Highlights the fact that malaria’s decline in Europe and the U.S. occurred before significant warming, due to better infrastructure and mosquito control.
• CNN Hypes False Dengue Fever Claims – Exposes CNN’s unsupported claim that dengue is surging because of climate, despite lack of vector expansion.
• Environment Journal Wrong About Climate Change Increasing the Spread of Malaria – Refutes the erroneous assumption that climate change is now driving diseases that were already once common in temperate zones.

The science actually shows that the existence and spread of vector-borne diseases in modern times are more a function of public health breakdowns than any change in climate. As Paul Reiter noted in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, vector diseases such as dengue and malaria thrived in temperate Europe centuries ago and were eradicated due to modern sanitation and mosquito control—not temperature decline. Concerning Dengue fever, its spread today is strongly linked to global trade and travel, particularly via used tires and shipping containers, which harbor mosquito eggs, as noted in Nature Microbiology, June 2019. In that study the authors wrote, “[t]he primary drivers of the global spread of dengue and Aedes mosquitoes have been increased urbanization, international trade (e.g., used tires and plants), and human movement, not simply climate change.”

Importantly, Temperature thresholds alone do not establish mosquito populations, they are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for mosquitos to flourish. According to a second 2019 paper in Nature Microbiology, factors such as rainfall patterns, water storage behavior, and urban development are equally or more decisive. That study warns that focusing solely on temperature creates an overly simplistic and often misleading picture of disease risk projections. It emphasizes that mosquitoes require both suitable climate conditions and specific environmental features, especially stagnant water sources, which are often human-created.

Climate at a Glance: Malaria concisely rebuts the claim that climate change is driving mosquito-borne disease outbreaks. Data, in fact, shows that during the recent period of slight global warming over the past century, Malaria has sharply declined, and it is projected to possibly be entirely wiped out sometime after the year 2040. See the map below from an article in The Economist titled “The shrinking malaria map.”

This story is just one more instance in which The Guardian is irresponsibly promoting a doomsday scenario based on unjustified extrapolations of trends based on extreme model projections, while ignoring real-world epidemiological evidence and historical context. The suggestion that “long-term net zero policies” are somehow our best protection against mosquito-borne disease is false. Direct interventions like removing stagnant pools of water, the judicious use of pesticides and prophylactic medicines, and the possible release of genetically modified sterile mosquitos, are far more effective interventions to prevent present and future mosquito-borne diseases than indirect efforts like cutting fossil fuel use in the hopes of impacting future temperatures. Tropical diseases are not lurking outside British windows waiting for a warmer day—they are controlled through policy, infrastructure, and targeted disease vector management.

For a publication that purports to value science, The Guardian continues to betray that trust with activist journalism masked as evidence-based reporting. If they want to inform rather than incite, they’d do well to start with the facts and drop the fear-mongering.

Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.

Originally poste in ClimateREALISM