Soon, cities will be too hot to live: UNEP Report

NEW DELHI: A new report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said that cities are very close to becoming hotspots if the issue of global warming remains unabated. The report titled ‘Sustainable Urban Cooling Handbook’ established that overheated cities will be the first to face the climate change costs which will be more than twice of what other parts of the world will face. Cities remain overexposed due to a phenomenon called urban heat island effect.

The study was based on an analysis of the world’s 1,692 largest cities. It suggested that higher temperatures will lead to greater energy use for cooling, increased air pollution, worsening water quality, and loss in worker productivity. Contingent on the climate zone, the urban heat island effect can raise urban temperature by as much as five degree Celsius.

The urban population exposed to high temperatures, where average summertime temperature reaches 35 degree Celsius, is expected to increase by 800 per cent to reach 1.6 billion by 2050. The World Health Organisation has established that the number of people exposed to heatwaves has already jumped by 125 million between 2000 and 2016.

Additionally, the International Labour Organisation projected worldwide loss of 80 million full-time jobs by 2030 due to heat stress as the global temperature is expected to rise by 1.5 degree Celsius by 2030. This is expected to result in a global economic loss of around $2.3 billion. The study said the impact of this will be unequally distributed around the globe – low-income countries, especially in the hot regions of southern Asia and western Africa, are likely to be the worst hit. Moreover, they are expected to lose around five per cent of working hours due to excessive heat.