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New research suggests up to one billion people could be facing deadly levels of heat stress if global warming reaches 2C above pre-industrial levels.
Heat stress is a dangerous combination of heat and humidity, that is determined through a wet bulb globe temperature (a measurement that takes into account temperature, humidity, wind speed and solar radiation) of above 32C.
Currently, 68 million people around the world are affected by heat stress. But a group of academics and Met Office scientists estimate that under a 2C scenario the number of people living under conditions of heat stress could increase 15-fold.
Dr Andy Hartley, the Met Office’s climate impacts lead, said: “Currently the (heat stress) metric is met in several locations, such as parts of India, but our analysis shows that with a rise of 4C, extreme heat risk could affect people in large swathes of most of the world’s continents”.
Elsewhere, the Cambo oil field project could jeopardise hundreds of species including protected deep sea sponges and "contribute to the climate crisis", environmental groups have warned.
Environmentalists said pipelines to export the oil from the Cambo field would cut through approximately 22 miles of the Faroe-Shetland Sponge Belt, a UK Marine Protected Area.
