More than one in five people worldwide will be forced to endure a life-threatening “new normal” if governments don’t act with urgency, according to the Institute of Sustainability and Environmental Professionals (ISEP).
What’s happening?
World leaders gathered in Belém, Brazil, for a global environmental summit beginning Nov. 10.
On Nov. 20, the penultimate day of the conference, the Guardian exclusively reported that talks on fossil fuel phase-out timelines had come to a screeching, tense halt, as leaders from petrostates — which rely heavily on oil and gas exports — fought to slow the transition.
ISEP highlighted a pivotal study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Sustainability in 2023, which served as a preemptive counterargument to states resisting the energy transition.
“The number of people exposed to dangerously hot temperatures will increase from around 60 million today to two billion by 2100 under current climate policies,” ISEP warned, citing the study.
The research in question held that “the costs” of an overheating planet are too often expressed in dollars, failing to account for the impact on millions of lives. Researchers examined the impact in the context of the “human climate niche.”
According to the World Economic Forum, the human climate niche is the “temperature range that has sustained human life and activity.” In plain terms, it refers to temperatures at which humans can live and function.
Researchers noted that at the time of publication in 2023, roughly 600 million people already lived outside of that range, leaving them exposed to dangerously high temperatures.
Looking ahead, they determined that “under current climate policies,” that number would nearly quadruple by 2100, placing 2 billion people in functionally uninhabitable, life-threatening heat.
Why is this important?
As global climate talks stalled and the summit’s end loomed, researchers’ warnings about the need to change course stood in stark relief.
The study found that, if nothing changes, global temperatures will reach 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by 2100 — and that wasn’t even the “worst case scenario,” ISEP noted.
Less conservative scenarios, in which temperatures rose by 3.6 degrees Celsius (6.5 degrees Fahrenheit) to 4.4 degrees Celsius (8 degrees Fahrenheit), would leave half the world’s population exposed to dangerously hot temperatures.
“For every 0.1°C of warming above present levels, about 140 million more people will be exposed to dangerous heat. This reveals both the scale of the problem and the importance of decisive action,” study author Tim Lenton explained.
However, if nations act and manage to cap warming at the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), only 5% of the world’s population would remain exposed to dangerous heat.
What’s being done about it?
With global leaders at an impasse, individual action to combat rising temperatures is more important than ever.
Keeping up with key climate issues is critical, and contacting lawmakers to demand action is another way to help.
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