Extreme Heat Could Make Parts of the Earth Uninhabitable
The Art
The Science
“Heatwaves account for some of the deadliest disasters on record. The European heat- wave of 2003 was responsible for more than 70,000 excess deaths; the Russian heatwave of 2010 killed over 55,000 people.
Impacts are not restricted to high-income countries; developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America have experienced severe heat-related emergencies in recent years. Indeed, almost everywhere that reliable data is available, heatwaves are the deadliest weather-related hazard. The dangers posed by extreme heat are growing at an alarming rate due to climate change.
The impacts of extreme heat are hugely unequal in both social and geographic terms. In a heatwave, the most vulnerable and marginalized people, including casual labourers, agricultural workers, and mi- grants, are pushed to the front lines. The elderly, children, and pregnant and breast-feeding women are at higher risk of illness and death associated with high ambient temperatures.
There is compelling evidence that the world’s lowest-income countries — those least responsible for climate change — are already experiencing disproportionate increases in extreme heat. The combined effects of warming, ageing and urbanization will cause a significant increase in the number of at-risk people in developing countries in the coming decades. Projected future death rates from extreme heat are staggeringly high — comparable in magnitude by the end of the century to all cancers or all infectious diseases — and staggeringly unequal, with people in poorer countries seeing far greater levels of increase.
The occurrence of extreme-heat events is unprecedented in the observed record and will grow with increasing global warming, according to the Sixth Assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Cli- mate Change. Every increment of warm- ing matters, and the projected increases are greatest for the rarest and most extreme events.
An extreme-heat event that would have occurred once in 50 years in a climate without human influence is now nearly five times as likely. Under 2°C of warming, an extreme-heat event is projected to be nearly 14 times as likely and to bring heat and hu- midity levels that are far more dangerous.
There are clear limits beyond which people exposed to extreme heat and humidity cannot survive. ..
FIVE THINGS HUMANITARIANS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EXTREME HEAT
1. Heatwaves are a major cause of suffering and death.
2. Heatwaves prey on inequality. Their greatest impacts are on vulnerable, isolated and marginalized people.
3. Climate change is already making heatwaves much more dangerous.
4. Heatwaves will become deadlier with every further increment of temperature rise associated with climate change.
5. Extreme heat has cascading impacts, threatening non- human life and undermining the systems that keep people healthy and alive. ..”
Extreme Heat – Preparing for the Heatwaves of the Future, Oct 2022, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the Red Cross Crescent Climate Centre.
This graph (page 27 of the report) shows the percentage of land in the Middle East and North Africa Exposed to heat waves, using historical data from 1951 to current and projected into 2091.
