Climate change may have unexpected benefits for Britons because fewer people will die from the cold during the winter, a new study suggests.

Although many regions of the world will see death rates soar as the climate heats-up, in northern Europe hot weather mortality will be cancelled out by the decrease in cold weather deaths.

In bad years nearly 50,000 more people die during the winter in Britain compared to the clement months. But the new research suggests that cold-related mortality will fall by between 32 and 50 per cent if the worst case climate change scenarios occur by the end of the century.

Although the current 2,000 excess annual summer deaths are expected to rise between seven and five-fold, they would be cancelled out by the fall in winter mortality, suggesting hundreds of lives would be spared.