Exposing the impact of climate change on human health, a new study has found that more than a third of all heat-related deaths around the world between 1991 and 2018 can be blamed on human-induced global heating.
What’s worse, scientists say this is only the tip of the very damaging climate iceberg. Adding that far more people die from extreme weather conditions brought upon by global warming disasters such as storms, flooding and drought.
For the purpose of this study, researchers looked at heat deaths in 732 cities in 43 countries around the globe from 1991 to 2018 and calculated that 37% were caused by higher temperatures. Overall, the data found the largest climate change-induced contributions to be from southern and western Asia (Iran and Kuwait), followed by south-east Asia (the Philippines and Thailand) and Central and South America.
Published in the journal Nature Climate Change, the study highlights the glaring reality that climate change is already killing people in every continent, making it more important than ever to empower meaningful change through global climate agreements.