One billion people will live in insufferable heat within 50 years – study | Environment | The Guardian

One billion people will live in insufferable heat within 50 years – study | Environment | The Guardian





An Indian farmer walks across the bed of a pond that has dried during a water crisis. (Sanjay Kanojia/AFP via Getty Images)

More than 1 billion face unbearable heat

Models of population growth and warming indicate that climate change is pushing much of humanity out of the comfortable ‘climate niche’ we have enjoyed for the past 6,000 years. If no substantial action is taken to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, places home to one-third of the global population will experience temperatures similar to the Sahara’s within 50 years. Even under optimistic scenarios, the homelands of more than 1 billion people will become unbearably hot by 2070 — with catastrophic consequences for human migration and food production. “I’ve previously studied climate tipping points, which are usually considered apocalyptic. But this hit home harder. This puts the threat in very human terms,” says climate scientist Tim Lenton.

The Guardian | 6 min readSource: PNAS paper