How many more will have to die as Asia gets hotter?
Record temperatures have claimed thousands of lives and caused droughts and floods across the continent in recent months, and the forecast is not cool
Record-breaking temperatures, devastating floods, raging bush fires and thousands of deaths. And this might just be the beginning.
With Hong Kong and much of Asia experiencing unusually hot temperatures in the past few months, scientists have warned that heatwaves will become more frequent and more lethal.
“Climate change has played an important role in the occurrence of heatwaves,” said Fu Cheung Sham, chief experimental officer at the Hong Kong Observatory. “As [the] climate warms, the chances of extreme heat will correspondingly increase.”
The World Health Organisation estimates that by the 2030s heat-related deaths in the Asia-Pacific’s high income countries may rise by 1,488, and by more than 21,000 across the entire Asian continent. On a global scale, rising temperatures are expected to cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2060, through heat exposure, tropical disease, undernutrition and diarrhoea.
A recent study in the journal PLOS Medicine described how the increase in frequency and severity of heatwaves would trigger a dramatic spike in heat-related deaths across the world, especially if carbon emissions are not checked.