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| Climate change will make many lands uncultivable and force billions of people to migrate. (Source: Indiatimes) |
A study recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) predicts that due to climate change causing extreme heat, humans will no longer be able to cool themselves naturally and will be forced to move to cooler regions, when the risk of death becomes greater.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Penn State College of Health and Human Development, Purdue University's College of Science, and the Purdue Research Institute for a Sustainable Future (USA) found that if temperatures rise beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, many low-income countries will become habitable because they have relatively milder temperatures than industrialized countries.
But climate change will also make many areas extremely hot in the coming years. Billions of people in the Americas, Asia and the Middle East may be forced to migrate to cooler places as temperatures continue to rise.
According to the research team, since the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, temperatures around the world have increased by 1 degree Celsius.
A 2°C rise above pre-industrial levels would expose more than 4 billion people living in India, Pakistan, eastern China and sub-Saharan Africa to unbearable heat.
A 3 degree Celsius increase would increase temperatures across the East Coast of the United States, the central United States, South America, and Australia.
Radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are the only defence against climate change, the study says.
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