Meeting current pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions could prevent an extra 57 deadly hot days per year, compared to a world without the landmark Paris Agreement to curb climate change, according to a new report.
Heat is the deadliest type of extreme weather, yet it often gets overshadowed by more dramatic threats like floods and storms. Even small temperature rises can wreak havoc on plants, animals, and humans.
Yet climate change is making heat waves hotter and more likely. Every year, heat claims around half a million lives, and rising temperatures are pushing critical ecosystems — including coral reefs — to the brink.
But increasing emissions cuts to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement would make a life-or-death difference when it comes to heat for many communities around the world. That’s according to the report by scientific initiative World Weather Attribution and US research organization Climate Central.
“We are still not seeing the highest possible ambition and that is obviously a huge problem,” said Friederike Otto, a scientist who works with WWA to study the links between climate change and extreme weather. “It is a problem that will be paid for with the lives and livelihoods of the poorest people in the world, in every country.”
Paris Agreement making a difference
Adopted in 2015, the Paris Agreement united 196 countries in a pledge to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and to pursue efforts to cap the rise at 1.5 C. The targets are measured against pre-industrial levels, before widespread fossil fuel use began altering the planet’s climate.
Global warming is currently at around 1.4C above that benchmark. And if countries’ current pledges to cut emissions are met, the world would be on track for at least 2.6C of warming by century’s end. That would see an additional 57 hot days compared to today’s climate.
“We are still heading for a dangerously hot future,” said Kristina Dahl, vice president for science at Climate Central, adding that many countries remain unprepared for even today’s level of warming.
Still, without the landmark Paris accord, the future would be far grimmer with 4C of warming and 114 extra hot days per year by 2100 compared to today — twice the number in the warming scenario under current pledges. Hot days are defined as days when temperatures are well above what’s usual for a given location.
Such heating would make recent record-breaking events — like 2023’s extreme European temperatures and the 2024 heat in southern US and Mexico — five to 75 times more likely than today.
Those heat waves in Europe caused an estimated 47,000 excess deaths, while the scorching temperatures in the US and Mexico exacerbated existing drought.
Every fraction of a degree counts
Since the Paris Agreement was adopted, the world has warmed 0.3C and now experiences 11 more hot days per year, the report noted.
Even that small uptick has had major impacts. The 2022 heat waves in India and Pakistan — sparking forest fires, lower wheat yields, and power shortages — became twice as likely. And extreme temperatures in 2024 in Mali and Burkina Faso, which hit 45C, were nine times more likely, driving hospitalizations and deaths.
The report highlights the danger of seemingly small amounts of warming in areas such as the Amazon Rainforest, crucial to the stability of the climate for its ability to store billions of tons of carbon.
“Over a decade, with 0.3C more warming, six-month spells of extreme heat in the Amazon — like the 2023 heat that severely exacerbated the crippling drought — have become 10 times more likely,” said Theo Keeping, an environment researcher at Imperial College London, who also works with WWA.
The drought has cut off an estimated 420,000 children from school and left many facing food and water shortages, according to a UN report.
For human health every fraction of a degree “will mean the difference between safety and suffering for millions of people,” said Otto, who is a climate science professor at Imperial College London.
Heat often hits the most vulnerable hardest, including low-income households, people with pre-existing medical conditions, outdoor workers and older populations. Since the 1990s, heat-related deaths among over-65s have risen 167%, for example.
“We humans are much more vulnerable than we tend to think,” Otto told DW.
More heat adaptation needed
Even if Paris pledges are met, two extra months of hot days each year have “huge implications for human rights and the need for adaptation,” said Otto.
Extreme heat is putting pressure not only on health but also on labor, livelihoods, and infrastructure.
While protective measures have improved since 2015, only about half of all countries have early warning systems for heat, and around 47 have national heat action plans, the report found.
“People don’t have to die from heat: there are measures, relatively straightforward measures, that societies can do to save lives,” Otto told DW.
Measures include strengthening water, energy, and healthcare systems, expanding urban greening to cool cities and reduce flooding, and enforcing labor protections to safeguard health and people’s ability to work. Yet funding for adaptation remains critically insufficient.
Emissions still need to fall faster
The report found that the Paris Agreement has steered the world away from the most dangerous climate scenarios for now. For the first time ever, renewables have overtaken coal as the world’s leading source of electricity, for instance.
However, 2024 was also the warmest on record, and CO2 levels in the atmosphere jumped to new highs, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Countries need to present more ambitious emissions cuts if to keep temperature rises below 2C. But ahead of the international COP30 summit held in Belem, Brazil, next month, many countries have yet to announce their national climate plans.
So far, the world is not yet doing enough to shift away from oil, gas and coal, said Otto. “We have all the knowledge and technology needed to transition away from fossil fuels, but stronger, fairer policies are needed to move faster,” she added.
Edited by: Jennifer Collins
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