Despite the risks of global warming by increasing temperatures, it may lead to making temperatures “less deadly”, according to a report published in a newspaper Washington Post Citing a study published in the journal Lancet Scientific.
Scientists found, according to the study, that high temperatures may be fatal, but cold is more “deadly”, as for every heat-related death, there are nine cold-related deaths.
During the past two decades, the world’s temperature has increased by about 0.9 Fahrenheit, while the number of heat-related deaths in total has reached about 650,000 people, and about 90 percent of them are related to cold.
“The findings suggest that global warming may slightly reduce temperature-related deaths in the short term,” the study authors said.
The newspaper report argues that the findings of this study opened the door to the hypothesis, “If cold is more deadly than heat, and the earth is getting hotter, global warming may save lives.”
The report states that the study relied on data for only 20 years, while scientists are required to rely on data for at least 30 years to draw conclusions about climate change, which may make its data estimates “inaccurate.”
He points out that expectations that the planet’s temperature will rise may mean better weather in the northern regions of the world, most of which are rich countries, where people can spend to protect themselves from the cold weather, but the effects of increasing temperatures may be a punishment for warm and less affluent regions, which It may change the equation by increasing the number of deaths from high temperatures.
The report cited a study published in the journal Oxford The Quarterly in November 2022, which concluded that “the worldwide temperature-related death rate is expected to remain roughly the same, but there is geographic variation, with hotter and poorer countries suffering.”
He stated that many studies that predict deaths due to future temperatures do not account for “adaptation”, not because they do not think humans will adapt, but because it is difficult to measure.
United Nations experts suggest that the world is heading towards a warming of between 2.1 and 2.9 degrees Celsius, but experts from outside the UN body warn that the number is much higher, with greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 setting a new record despite efforts to convert to Renewable energy sources, according to a previous report by Agence France-Presse.
