Global population living with extreme heat to double by 2050: Oxford study

Mumbai: Almost half the world’s population (3.79 billion) will be living with extreme heat by 2050 if the world reaches 2.0°C of global warming above pre-industrial levels – a scenario that climate scientists see as increasingly likely, according to a new University of Oxford study.

Most of the impacts will be felt earlier as the world passes the 1.5°C target set by the Paris Agreement, the authors warn. 

In 2010, 23 per cent of the world's population lived with extreme heat, which is set to 41 per cent over the next decades.

The findings, published in Nature Sustainability, have indicated grave implications for humanity, with the Central African Republic, Nigeria, South Sudan, Laos, and Brazil seeing the most significant increases in dangerously hot temperatures.

The largest affected populations will be in India, Nigeria, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the Philippines, the study predicts.

Countries with colder climates will see a much larger relative change in uncomfortably hot days, more than doubling in some cases. Compared with the 2006–2016 period, when the global mean temperature increase reached 1°C over pre-industrial levels, the study finds that warming to 2 °C would lead to a doubling (100% increase) in Austria and Canada, 150 per cent in the UK, Sweden, Finland, 200% in Norway, and a 230% increase in Ireland.

“Our study shows most of the changes in cooling and heating demand occur before reaching the 1.5 degree C threshold, which will require significant adaptation measures to be implemented early on. For example, many homes may need air conditioning to be installed in the next five years, but temperatures will continue to rise long after that if we hit 2.0 of global warming,” says Dr Jesus Lizana, lead author and Associate Professor in Engineering Science.

“To achieve the global goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, we must decarbonise the building sector while developing more effective and resilient adaptation strategies.”

“Our findings should be a wake-up call,” says Dr Radhika Khosla, Associate Professor at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment and leader of the Oxford Martin Future of Cooling Programme.

“Overshooting 1.5°C of warming will have an unprecedented impact on everything from education and health to migration and farming. Net zero sustainable development remains the only established path to reversing this trend for ever hotter days. It is imperative that politicians regain the initiative towards it.”