The world’s lowest-income countries are experiencing disproportionate increases in extreme heat and will see a significant increase in the number of at-risk people in the coming decades, a report by the UN and Red Cross has warned.
“As the climate crisis goes unchecked, extreme weather events, such as heatwaves and floods, are hitting the most vulnerable people the hardest,” said Martin Griffiths, UN Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. “Nowhere is the impact more brutally felt than in countries already reeling from hunger, conflict and poverty,” he added.
The report is titled Extreme Heat: Preparing for the heatwaves of the future and has been released ahead of the COP27 UN climate change conference in Egypt next month.
The report adds that in upcoming decades, heatwaves are predicted to meet and exceed human physiological and social limits in regions such as the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, and southwest Asia resulting in large-scale suffering and death, population movements and further entrenched inequality.
“At COP27, we will urge world leaders to ensure that this investment reaches local communities that are on the frontline of the climate crisis. If communities are prepared to anticipate climate risks and equipped to take action, we will prevent extreme weather events from becoming humanitarian disasters,” IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chapagain said.
Rise In Inequality
The report also reveals how heat waves contribute to inequality, as isolated and marginalised people suffer the greatest impacts.
Vulnerable communities, according to the report, such as agricultural workers, are being pushed to the frontlines of the crisis and elderly people, children, and pregnant women face a higher risk of illness and death. The report calls for supporting long-term adaptation for these populations and highlights five key steps
This includes calling for providing early information on heat waves to help people and authorities take timely action followed by anticipatory action, especially by local actors. It also called for local authorities to find new and more sustainable ways of financing local action and adapting to the "new normal”.
This year many regions in North Africa, Australia, Europe, South Asia, the Middle East, the western United States, and China have experienced record-high temperatures.
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