20% of the world’s population will be exposed to dangerous heat

Nature Sustainability talks about the warning of scientists at Exeter and Nanjing universities, whose forecasts are disappointing.

They consider writes BB.LV that by 2100 the current climate policy, which is expressed in the adoption of insufficient measures to regulate global warming, will lead to the fact that a fifth of the world’s population will be exposed to dangerous temperatures.

In the article published in the journal Nature Sustainability, scientists point out that despite the promise of the Paris Agreement to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (compared to pre-industrial levels), current policies will lead to 2.7°C of warming by the end of the century.

Scientists say that approximately 60 million people are already exposed to dangerous heat (i.e., the average temperature is 29°C and above). By 2100, this number will increase to 2 billion. At the same time, if warming is limited to 1.5°C, only 5% of the world’s population will be exposed to the threat of dangerous heat.

A study by scientists shows that emissions from the lives of three and a half of the world’s average citizens will expose one person to a dangerous heat wave in the future. This highlights the unfairness of the climate crisis, as these people who will be exposed to the heat in the future will be living in places where emissions to date are only about half the global average.

In the worst scenarios of global warming, if temperatures rise by 3.6-4.4°C, half of the world’s population may be outside a favorable climate niche, which will create an “existential risk” to its existence.

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