A study published Monday shows that about a third of the world’s population is likely to live in areas with inhumane temperatures by the end of the century – if climate policy remains unchanged.
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- By the end of the century, about a third of the world’s population is expected to live outside what is called a human climatic niche.
- This is what researchers at the University of Exeter (UK) discovered.
- According to the study published on Monday, the average annual temperature of the human climatic niche is between 11 and 15 degrees Celsius.
- The researchers examined the effects of an increase in the global average temperature by 2.7 degrees – a realistic scenario in current climate policy.
- Countries like India, Nigeria and Indonesia will be affected by the inhumane temperatures.
A third of people could be living in regions with inhumane temperatures by the end of the century. This is the conclusion reached by an international research team in a study published in the famous journal “Nature Sustainability”.
The researchers studied the effects of increasing the global average temperature by 2.7 degrees – as expected in current climate policy.
The research team led by Timothy Linton of the University of Exeter (Great Britain) identified “human climatic niches” as the temperature range in which most people lived in the past. There, for example, livestock could be kept and useful plants could germinate.
They explained that living outside this human climatic niche means increased disease and mortality. The optimum annual average temperature for this place is around 11 to 15 degrees Celsius. More than 600 million people, more than nine percent of the world’s population, currently live outside these regions.
India, Nigeria and Indonesia were particularly affected
According to the study, particularly large numbers will be affected by inhumane temperatures in India, Nigeria and Indonesia. Burkina Faso, Mali and Qatar will be almost completely out of the climate zone.
If demographic evolution is also included, the global proportion of people living outside the human climate niche would rise to 40 percent – since the strongest population growth will occur above all in regions with higher temperatures.
The researchers also noted that for every 0.3 degree rise in temperature averted, 350 million fewer people would be affected. If warming were limited to 1.5 degrees, 14 percent of all people would be affected by inhumane temperatures.
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