2015 saw the UK destroy its position as a climate and energy leader, and now faces some tough questions in the wake of a successful Paris climate agreement.
Despite a big year in 2014 which saw a number of renewable energy records broken and strong momentum created for the country’s renewable energy industry, following 6 months of baffling policy decisions and a lacklustre attendance in Paris, the UK has a long way to go if it is to accomplish its role in tackling climate change.
If we don’t cut greenhouse gases, it’s not just storms and rising seas we’d have to worry about. The heat alone could kill a lot of us.
In India last May, temperatures rose to 120°F (50°C), killing more than 2,300 people—and melting this street in New Delhi (Image: H. Tyagi/EPA)
If greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced, rising temperatures and humidity wrought by global warming could expose hundreds of millions of people worldwide to potentially lethal heat stress by 2060, a new report suggests.
The greatest exposure will occur in populous, tropical regions such as India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. But even in the northeastern United States, as many as 30 million people might be exposed at least once a year to heat that could be lethal to children, the elderly, and the sick, according to the new study.
It’s the first study to look at future heat stress on a global basis, says Ethan Coffel, a PhD candidate in atmospheric sciences at Columbia University, who presented the results on Monday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. Coffel and his colleagues used climate models and population projections to estimate how many people could face dangerous heat in 2060—assuming that greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise sharply on a “business-as-usual” course.
