Heat waves will become so frequent and intense as a result of global warming that parts of the globe will become unlivable in the coming decades, the UN and the Red Cross warned on Monday.
Less than a month before COP27, which is to take place in November in Egypt, the UN and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) are calling in a joint report to prepare for the coming heat waves to avoid a significant number of deaths.
“We don’t want to dramatize the situation, but the data clearly shows that the future is very bleak,” IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chap once more said at a press conference.
uninhabitable areas
Some regions risk becoming “too hot for humans to live there, it is a reality that we are facing, we are reaching these limits”, affirmed Jagan Chap once more, citing the Horn of Europe as an example. Africa and the Sahel.
There are limits beyond which people exposed to extreme heat and humidity cannot survive, and limits beyond which societies can no longer adapt. “Under current trajectories, heat waves might reach and exceed these physiological and social limits in the coming decades, especially in regions such as the Sahel, South Asia and Southwest Asia,” write the UN and the IFRC.
Such a situation will result in “large-scale suffering and loss of human life, population movements and worsening inequalities”, warn the two organizations.
“Silent Killer”
According to the report, almost everywhere reliable statistics are available, heat waves are the deadliest weather hazard. They already kill thousands of people each year and will become increasingly deadly as climate change increases.
Overall, experts predict very high extreme heat-related death rates, “comparable in magnitude, by the end of the century, to all cancers,” the report said.
This year, regions or entire countries of North Africa, Australia, Europe, South Asia and the Middle East have suffocated under record temperatures, but also China and the western United States. United.
The report recalls that extreme heat is “a silent killer” whose effects will amplify, posing enormous challenges to sustainable development while creating new humanitarian needs.
Massive humanitarian crisis
“The humanitarian system does not have the means to solve a crisis of this magnitude on its own. We already lack the funds and resources to respond to some of the worst humanitarian crises in progress this year”, underlined in front of the journalists Martin Griffiths , head of the UN humanitarian agency.
According to a study cited by the report, the number of poor people living in extreme heat conditions in urban areas will jump by 700% by 2050, particularly in West Africa and Southeast Asia.
furr with ats/afp
