In the last three decades, human-induced global warming has caused more than one-third of all heat-related deaths. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, looked at deaths between 1991 and 2018 from 43 countries around the world. In the role that heat played, an average of 37 percent of deaths was responsible for the effects of the climate crisis. There are many differences between macro regions and specific regions, many places have much higher prices. South America and Southeast Asia account for the highest percentage of heat-related deaths due to climate change.
In Ecuador and Colombia, for example, it was up to 76 percent. There is also a huge variety in big cities. Santiago de Chile and New York City experienced the same percentage per year, with additional 136 and 144 heat-related deaths per year, respectively. Global warming affects human health in multiple ways. Making people more susceptible to getting sick and dying from heat is one of them. To differentiate heat-related deaths due to climate change from other factors, the team looked at weather conditions where there was no ethnographic global warming, as well as how greenhouse emissions affected the actual climate.
Equipped with this, the team was able to differentiate the additional effects of climate change. Lead author Dr Ana M. Vicedo-Cabrera from the University of Bern said in a statement, “If we do nothing about climate change or adaptation, we hope that the heat-related death rate will continue to rise. So far, the average global temperature has risen by only about 1 degree Celsius, a fraction that we may encounter if we continue to examine emissions.”
Research has shown that the climate crisis is already affecting humanity beyond perception or recognition, and that global governments need more ambition to mitigate global warming. More improved public health measures needed to mitigate the increased risks posed by anthropogenic climate crises. The study provided some important insights but the researchers acknowledged its limitations as it covered only a handful of countries and had limited data in large regions of Africa and South Asia where the effects of the climate crisis have already been devastating in various other ways.
