NEW DELHI: A new study conducted by researchers at Oxford University indicates that India will need more cooling solutions, such as expansion of air conditioners, in the coming decades to protect its large population from rising heat levels.
The study highlights that if the current pace of fossil fuel consumption (including oil, coal, and gas) continues, global temperatures could rise by 2°C in the next 25 years, potentially doubling the number of people exposed to extreme heat.
Simultaneously, the cooler areas of the planet will shrink by half. In 2010, approximately 23 per cent of the world's population (about 1.54 billion people) faced extreme heat, a figure projected to increase to 41 per cent (around 3.79 billion people) by 2050.
The findings, published in Nature Sustainability, have serious implications for humanity, particularly for countries with large populations such as India, Nigeria, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the Philippines.
Other major countries at risk of dangerously increased temperatures include the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Laos, and Brazil. Lead author Jesus Lizana explains that densely populated countries like India will experience extreme heat, with many regions exceeding 3,000 cooling degree days (CDD).
The CDD metric measures annual heat levels and indicates how much cooling is necessary; more than 3,000 CDD implies prolonged high temperatures.
Lower to middle-income countries in the tropics and subtropics will require more energy per person to provide cooling and protect their citizens while also boosting productivity.
Meanwhile, rising temperatures are expected to reduce cold regions on Earth. The percentage of people living in "extremely cool" areas may drop from 14 to 7 per cent of the global population, resulting in fewer places that remain very cool.
Wealthier northern nations, such as Canada, the Russian Federation, Finland, Sweden, and Norway, may benefit from the warming of their regions, as they will require less energy for heating.
“Our findings should serve as a wake-up call,” says Dr Radhika Khosla, Associate Professor at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment and leader of the Oxford Martin Future of Cooling Programme.
“Overshooting a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase in global warming will have unprecedented impacts on education, health, migration, and agriculture. Achieving net-zero sustainable development is the only viable solution to reverse this trend of increasingly hot days. Politicians must take action to redirect efforts towards this goal.”