85% of world population already impacted by climate change

The effects of climate change could already impact 85% of the world’s population, according to an analysis of tens of thousands of studies, published on Monday.

A team of researchers analyzed nearly 100,000 studies published between 1951 and 2018, regarding global warming, with the help of computer systems.

“We have devastating evidence that climate change affects all continents, all systems,” study author Max Callaghan told AFP.

Callaghan and researchers from the Berlin-based Mercator Institute mapped the globe and mapped the impacts of climate change.

As a result, 80% of the Earth, which is home to 85% of the world’s population, is affected by studies that foresee changes in temperature and rainfall linked to global warming.

But the impacts are less documented in poor countries. The trends in rainfall and temperatures in Africa could be linked to climate change, “but we do not have many studies documenting the consequences of these trends,” explains Max Callaghan, who sees in this a “blind spot in our understanding of the impacts”.

Research on climate change has grown exponentially in recent years, with nearly 1,500 studies published between 1951 and 1990, against 75,000 to 85,000 over the past five years.