Washington: Half of the world population endured an additional month of extreme heat during the past year due to artificial climate change, a new study found Friday.
The findings underline how continuous burning of fossil fuels is damaging health and well -being in each continent, with the effects especially little recognized in developing countries, the authors said.
“With each barrel of burned oil, each ton of liberated carbon dioxide, and each fraction of a degree of heating, heat waves will affect more people,” said Friederike Otto, climate scientist at Imperial College London and co -author of the report.
The analysis, carried out by scientists in the attribution of world climate, climate climate and the Crescent Climate Center of the Red Cross, was launched before the global day of the heat action on June 2, which this year highlights the dangers of heat depletion and heat stroke.
To evaluate the influence of global warming, the researchers analyzed the period from May 1, 2024 to May 1, 2025.
They defined the “extreme heat days” as those hottest of 90% of the temperatures recorded in a given place between 1991 and 2020.
Using an peer reviewed modeling approach, they compared the number of said days with a simulated world without heating caused by humans.
The results were marked: approximately four billion people, 49% of the world’s population, experienced at least 30 more days of extreme heat than they would have done.
The team identified 67 extreme heat events during the year and found the digital footprint of climate change in all of them.
The Caribbean island of Aruba was the most affected, registering 187 days of extreme heat, 45 more than expected in a world without climate change.
The study follows a year of unprecedented global temperatures. 2024 was the hottest year registered, exceeding 2023, while January 2025 marked the hottest January of history.
In an average of five years, global temperatures are now now 1.3 degrees Celsius above pre -industrial levels, and only in 2024, exceeded 1.5 ° C, the symbolic roof established by the Paris climate agreement.
The report also highlights a critical lack of data on health -related health impacts in low -income regions.
While Europe registered more than 61,000 deaths related to heat in the summer of 2022, comparable figures are scarce in other places, with many deaths related to heat badly attributed to underlying conditions such as heart or pulmonary disease.
The authors emphasized the need for early alert systems, public education and heat action plans adapted to cities.
There are also a better building design, including shading and ventilation, and behavioral adjustments such as avoiding strenuous activity during maximum heat.
Even so, adaptation alone will not be enough. The only way to stop the growing severity and the frequency of extreme heat, warned the authors, is to quickly eliminate the elimination of fossil fuels.
