Climate change has added an extra month of extreme heat for 4 billion people between May 1, 2024, and May 1, 2025, the hottest year on Earth ever remembered, according to a report by scientific organizations released on the eve of Heat Action Day on June 2.
German climatologist Friedericke Otto said when presenting the report that “climate change is already here and wreaking havoc. With every barrel of oil burned, every ton of carbon dioxide released, and every fraction of a degree of warming, heat waves will affect more people.”
Otto is co-director of the British group of scientists WWA (World Weather Attribution), which conducted the study with the science outreach group Climate Central and the Red Cross Climate Center.
The study projected that some 4 billion people across the planet—half of humanity (8.2 billion)—suffered at least one extra month of intense heat over the past year due to the climate crisis the planet is experiencing. This is an average, and the study illustrates this with the example of three countries examined in Latin America—Argentina, Costa Rica, and Mexico—as well as 10 Caribbean islands.
Argentina, between May 2024 and May 2025, experienced 55 days of extreme heat. Without human-induced climate change, the average person in the past would have experienced only 33 of those days, meaning that climate change added 22 days of extreme heat.
Costa Rica, during the period considered, experienced 86 days of extreme heat. Without climate change, the average person in the country would have experienced only 14 of those days, indicating that the climate crisis added 72 days of extreme heat.
And Mexico experienced 82 days of extreme heat between May 2024 and May 2025. The average person would have experienced just 31 of those days if not for climate change, which added 51 days of extreme heat to the country. In the Caribbean, states and territories such as Aruba, Dominica, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines experienced between 180 and 187 days of extreme heat—more than half the year—with climate change adding, according to the study, between 142 and 151 days of extreme heat.
Other Caribbean islands, such as Barbados, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Puerto Rico, experienced between 161 and 175 days of extreme heat, with three or four months of that excessive heat added as a result of climate change.
After analyzing 67 heat waves worldwide, the study found that climate change has at least doubled the number of days of extreme heat.
Mariam Zachariah, a WWA researcher, noted that “these frequent and intense episodes of high temperatures are associated with a wide range of impacts, including heat illnesses, deaths, strain on health systems, crop losses, reduced productivity, and transportation disruptions.”
“There is no place on Earth that hasn’t been affected by climate change, and heat is its deadliest consequence,” summarized Kristina Dahl, vice president of Climate Science at Climate Center.
Roop Singh, of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, explained that “through our interactions, we know that people are feeling the increase in heat, but they don’t always understand that it is being driven by climate change and will continue to get much worse.”
“We need to rapidly scale up our responses to heat through better early warning systems, action plans, and long-term planning for urban heat to meet the growing challenge,” Singh added.
Beyond the data, the report establishes strategies for preparing for heat waves, including increased reporting and monitoring of their impact, and highlights that the action plans “have proven extremely effective in reducing the number of deaths during heat waves.”
Otto said that “we know how to prevent heat waves from getting worse: restructuring our energy systems to be more efficient and based on renewable energy, not fossil fuels, and creating more equal and resilient societies.”
Source: www.cubadebate.cu
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