Study: More than a third of world’s heat deaths caused by climate change

More than one-third of the world’s heat deaths are directly caused by climate change, according to a new study that looks into the fatal effects of global warming.

The study, which looked at 732 cities in 43 countries from 1991 to 2018 and was published in the journal Nature Climate Change, says that 37 percent of warm-season heat-related deaths are linked to human-caused warming.

That amounts to 9,700 people a year from those cities alone, CBS News reported on Tuesday.

“These are deaths related to heat that actually can be prevented. It is something we directly cause,” said Ana Vicedo-Cabrera, an epidemiologist at the Institute of Social and Preventative Medicine at the University of Bern in Switzerland.

The study’s authors said that extreme weather events such as storms and draughts cause far more deaths than heat alone, though heat-related fatalities are expected to rise exponentially as the world continues to warm.

Researchers said approximately 35 percent of U.S. heat deaths can be attributed to climate change.

The highest percentages of heat-related mortality attributable to human-induced climate change — all above 50 percent — were detected in southern and western Asia, particularly Iran and Kuwait; southeast Asia, specifically the Philippines and Thailand; and a number of countries in Central and South America, according to the study.

President Biden has made the issue of climate change and global warming a chief concern for his administration.

The White House hosted a virtual climate summit in April with 40 heads of state, where Biden announced that by 2030 the U.S. expects to reduce its carbon emissions by between 50 and 52 percent, compared to 2005 levels.