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Heat Stress Response to National-Committed Emission Reductions under the Paris Agreement

With the changes in global temperature and humidity, heat stress is expected to intensify in the coming decades. Under the scenario that greenhouse gas emissions keep increasing until the end of this century, there is the possibility of extensive global exposure to high heat stress. While under new...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Wang, Fang, Zhang, Jintao
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6616907/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31234401
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16122202
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author Wang, Fang
Zhang, Jintao
author_facet Wang, Fang
Zhang, Jintao
author_sort Wang, Fang
collection PubMed
description With the changes in global temperature and humidity, heat stress is expected to intensify in the coming decades. Under the scenario that greenhouse gas emissions keep increasing until the end of this century, there is the possibility of extensive global exposure to high heat stress. While under new mitigation efforts (as part of the Paris Agreement, signatory nations pledged to implement the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) for emission reductions), the regional response of heat stress to pledged emission reductions remains unclear. In this study, we analyze the heat stress response in global hotspot regions, targeting emission scenarios resulting from the INDCs pledges. Our study revealed that under the INDCs-continuous mitigation, the heat stress effect in global hotspot regions (North China, South Asia, and the Amazon) is estimated to be lower than 29 °C in the next three decades and to be from >33 °C to less than 30 °C to this century end. The heat stress effect indicates a great reduction at the continuous mitigation compared with the delayed mitigation, and the population exposed to dangerous heat stress would also decrease approximately one order of magnitude. If limiting warming to a lesser amount (1.5/2 °C targets), significantly further reduction of the population exposed to heat stress in the middle and low latitudes can be achieved, thus avoiding the adverse effects associated with heat stress. Therefore, the national intended mitigation actions under the Paris Agreement will play a crucial role in reducing the heat stress risk in these hot and humid regions. These findings will help to improve the understanding of the future risks of heat stress and are crucial for mitigation and adaptation actions in hotspot areas (approximately 1/3 of the world’s population).
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spelling pubmed-66169072019-07-18 Heat Stress Response to National-Committed Emission Reductions under the Paris Agreement Wang, Fang Zhang, Jintao Int J Environ Res Public Health Article With the changes in global temperature and humidity, heat stress is expected to intensify in the coming decades. Under the scenario that greenhouse gas emissions keep increasing until the end of this century, there is the possibility of extensive global exposure to high heat stress. While under new mitigation efforts (as part of the Paris Agreement, signatory nations pledged to implement the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) for emission reductions), the regional response of heat stress to pledged emission reductions remains unclear. In this study, we analyze the heat stress response in global hotspot regions, targeting emission scenarios resulting from the INDCs pledges. Our study revealed that under the INDCs-continuous mitigation, the heat stress effect in global hotspot regions (North China, South Asia, and the Amazon) is estimated to be lower than 29 °C in the next three decades and to be from >33 °C to less than 30 °C to this century end. The heat stress effect indicates a great reduction at the continuous mitigation compared with the delayed mitigation, and the population exposed to dangerous heat stress would also decrease approximately one order of magnitude. If limiting warming to a lesser amount (1.5/2 °C targets), significantly further reduction of the population exposed to heat stress in the middle and low latitudes can be achieved, thus avoiding the adverse effects associated with heat stress. Therefore, the national intended mitigation actions under the Paris Agreement will play a crucial role in reducing the heat stress risk in these hot and humid regions. These findings will help to improve the understanding of the future risks of heat stress and are crucial for mitigation and adaptation actions in hotspot areas (approximately 1/3 of the world’s population). MDPI 2019-06-21 2019-06 /pmc/articles/PMC6616907/ /pubmed/31234401 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16122202 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Wang, Fang
Zhang, Jintao
Heat Stress Response to National-Committed Emission Reductions under the Paris Agreement
title Heat Stress Response to National-Committed Emission Reductions under the Paris Agreement
title_full Heat Stress Response to National-Committed Emission Reductions under the Paris Agreement
title_fullStr Heat Stress Response to National-Committed Emission Reductions under the Paris Agreement
title_full_unstemmed Heat Stress Response to National-Committed Emission Reductions under the Paris Agreement
title_short Heat Stress Response to National-Committed Emission Reductions under the Paris Agreement
title_sort heat stress response to national-committed emission reductions under the paris agreement
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6616907/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31234401
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16122202
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