Climate change is projected to claim an additional 430,000 lives every year by 2050, with the overwhelming majority of those deaths occurring in low- and lower-middle-income countries, including Nepal, according to a new scientific study.
A report released Monday by the Climate Impact Lab, a U.S.-based research consortium, warns that the world’s poorest countries will bear the brunt of rising temperatures because they lack reliable access to the electricity needed for cooling. While wealthier nations are expected to respond to increasing heat by rapidly expanding the use of air conditioning, millions of people in poorer countries will simply be unable to afford or access the electricity required to protect themselves.
The study projects that climate-related deaths will be ten times higher in poorer countries than in wealthier ones by mid-century. It identifies 18 countries trapped in what researchers call the “Mortality-Cooling Trap”—a deadly combination of extreme heat exposure and limited capacity to increase electricity use for cooling.
The countries include Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar in South Asia, along with Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Chad in northern Sub-Saharan Africa.
Together, these 18 countries are home to approximately 676 million people. The report estimates that by 2050, around 377,000 people in these countries could die each year as a result of rising temperatures and inadequate access to cooling…
