Status: 10/10/2022 1:40 p.m
According to a UN report, entire regions of the world could be uninhabitable in a few decades if the consequences of climate change are not mitigated. By the end of the century, heat will claim as many deaths as cancer.
According to a report by the UN and the Red Cross, extreme heat waves will make entire regions of the world uninhabitable in just a few decades. If climate change continues as before, heat waves in areas such as the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and South and Southwest Asia would exceed the “physical and social limits” of humans, the organizations warned when presenting a joint report in Geneva. “Great suffering and loss of life” would be the consequences.
Steadily rising death toll expected
According to the report, heat waves are the highest meteorological hazard in all regions for which reliable statistics are available. Thousands of people are already becoming victims of heat waves every year.
UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths and Secretary-General of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (ICRC), Jagan Cahpagain, said the number of deaths will increase year after year as climate change progresses. Experts predict that the number of deaths from extreme heat will be as high as that of cancer deaths worldwide by the end of the century.
Poor countries hardest hit
“There are clear limits above which people exposed to extreme heat and humidity cannot survive,” the report says. If global warming continues as it has so far, heat waves would reach and exceed these limits in the coming decades.
The combined effects of heat, progressive urbanization and an aging society will mean that the number of people in emerging countries who are particularly at risk will increase in the coming decades. Agricultural workers, children, the elderly, pregnant and breastfeeding women are at particularly high risk of illness and death. The effects were felt most severely in those countries that were already suffering from hunger, conflict and poverty.
ICRC Secretary-General Chapagain called on participants at next month’s UN climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to invest in measures to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.