Deadly Heat: Climate Change Puts 2 Billion Lives At Risk, Study Reveals

A non-profit science organisation, the Climate Central has disclosed that between June and August, 2 billion people in the world were exposed to more than 30 days of health-threatening temperatures strongly influenced by climate change.

The organisation also disclosed that climate change caused about 72 countries to experience their hottest summer since at least 1970.

This is contained in the Climate Central news report set to release soon.

The report also revealed that one in four people on the planet experienced climate change-driven temperatures every day in June, July, and August because of the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil, gas, and coal, and human activities.

“180 cities in the Northern Hemisphere experienced at least one extreme heatwave from June to August.

“These heat waves are, on average, 21 times more likely today because of carbon pollution, mainly caused by burning coal, oil and gas,” the report stated.

Also speaking on the issue, vice president for science at Climate Central, Andrew Pershing, said that the high temperatures that were clearly influenced by climate change jeopardized the health of billions around the world during the past three months.

“No region, country, or city is safe from the deadly threats posed by burning fossil fuels,” he said.

Using Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index, the new analysis quantifies the impact of climate change on temperatures and estimates the number of people affected by these extreme conditions.

It also provided detailed data on heat exposure at global, regional, local levels, and in about 1,200 cities.

To estimate the risks of heat to human health, researchers looked at days in which temperatures were significantly hotter than the historical record – the “risky heat” days.

Temperatures on those days, according to the findings, were hotter than 90 percent of temperatures observed in a local area over the 1991-2020 period which represented a minimum mortality threshold at which heat-related health risks climbed statistically.

Deadly Heat: Climate Change Puts 2 Billion Lives At Risk, Study Reveals is first published on The Whistler Newspaper