Scientific American talked about the impact of the Paris Agreement on extreme heat

Ten years ago, countries signed the Paris Agreement to curb global warming. During this time, progress has been modest, but even it is already helping to reduce the number of hottest days in the world. This was reported on November 12 in the journal Scientific American.

According to climatologists, any, albeit incomplete, efforts are important to reduce risks. This message has become one of the key ones and was discussed at the annual UN Climate Change Conference COP30, which is currently taking place in Brazil.

Studies have shown that warming has made heat waves more frequent, prolonged, and dangerous. They have already become the deadliest weather threat: in ten years, the number of deaths from heat in the United States has increased by 53%, while from cold — by only 7%. As noted in the article, globally, deaths from heat have increased by 63% since the 1990s.

When the agreement was signed in 2015, the Earth's temperature was already about one degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The countries pledged to limit further warming to "well below" two degrees and sought to keep it below 1.5 degrees. At that time, the average annual temperature increase was about 1.3 degrees. This small change has already meant an average of 11 additional extremely hot days per year around the world, according to researchers from the non-profit organization Climate Central and World Weather Attribution. In some countries, the number of such days was even higher.

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Even these limited successes of the Paris Agreement were noticeable. Without it, the world could face a warming of four degrees and up to 114 additional extremely hot days annually, and in Indonesia — more than 300. It was predicted that a temperature increase of 2.5–3 degrees would reduce the number of extremely hot days by about half. Friederike Otto, a climatologist from Imperial College London, emphasized that every tenth of a degree of warming is important for distinguishing between a safe life and the suffering of millions of people.

The scientists also clarified that limiting warming to 2.6 degrees significantly reduced the risk of severe heat waves, fires and droughts. With a warming of four degrees, such waves could be three to six degrees hotter and 5-75 times more likely than before, and at 2.6 degrees - 1.5 to 3 degrees hotter and 3-35 times more likely.

Although compliance with the commitments was not guaranteed — an example was the US withdrawal from the agreement under American leader Donald Trump — there were positive developments. Emissions from China, the world's largest source, have remained stable or decreased, solar and wind generation have more than tripled since 2015, and investments in clean energy have exceeded investments in fossil fuels.

The main question of COP30 is whether the countries remaining parties to the agreement will be able to take new concrete measures to reduce emissions beyond those already promised.

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