PanamaTimes

Sunday, Oct 25, 2026

Most Countries May See Annual Heat Extremes Every Second Year: Study

Most Countries May See Annual Heat Extremes Every Second Year: Study

The study combined data on historical emissions and pledges made before COP26 summit for cuts from top five emitters to make regional warming predictions by 2030.

Almost every country on Earth could experience extremely hot years every other year by 2030, according to a new research Thursday highlighting the outsized contribution of emissions from the world's major polluters.

The modelling study combined data on historical emissions and pledges made before the COP26 climate summit for cuts from the top five emitters -- China, the US, the European Union, India and Russia -- to make regional warming predictions by 2030.

The researchers found that 92 per cent of 165 countries studied are expected to experience extremely hot annual temperatures, defined as a once-in-one-hundred-year hot year in the pre-industrial era, every two years.

Alexander Nauels of Climate Analytics, who co-authored the study published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, said that in itself was "very striking".

"It just really shows the urgency and how we're heading into a world that is just so much hotter for everybody," he told news agency AFP.

To look at the scale of the contribution from the world's five biggest emitters to this prediction, the authors looked at what the picture would be without their emissions since 1991, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) first warned governments of human-made climate change.

They found that the proportion of countries affected by extreme hot years would shrink to around 46 percent.

Lead author Lea Beusch, of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich university, said the study found "a clear imprint" of the actions of top emitters on the regional scale.

"This is I think very important, because we usually talk about these abstract quantities of emissions, or global temperatures, which we know about, but we can't really feel," she said.

"Whereas regional climate change is much closer to what we're going to experience -- we're going to experience this warming in our country and this increasing frequency of extremely hot years."

The researchers found the biggest impact in terms of the frequency of extremely hot years in tropical Africa.

"Because this is a region that traditionally has quite low year-to-year temperature variability, even the moderate mean warming it is set to experience, compared to other regions, really puts it out of its known climate envelope," she said.

But she added that the greatest overall temperature increases are in northern high latitude areas, which are warming at a faster rate than the tropics.

The authors stressed that the prediction for the frequency of extreme years could be changed if countries significantly step up efforts to cut pollution.

Current plans would see emissions increase 13.7 percent by 2030, according to the UN climate change body UNFCCC, when they must fall by roughly half to keep the Paris Agreement warming limit of 1.5C within reach.

Newsletter

Related Articles

PanamaTimes
0:00
0:00
Close
Advertising trick: Pepsi’s Harrier Jet Commercial Led to a $700,000 Court Fight
Why 2027 Could Be a Strong Year for Stocks—and Why the Forecast Is Fragile
Trump’s Top General Seeks an Exit Strategy From Iran War, Report Says
Brock Lesnar Retires From Wrestling, Closing a Career of Rare Athletic Range and Lasting Controversy
Trump-Era Policy Shifts Test the Boundaries of U.S. Institutions
Weight-Loss Drug Boom Tests the Limits of Prescription Advertising Rules
Breaking With the Past: One of the World’s Smallest Countries Changes Its Name
AI Is Remaking the US Economy, From GDP Growth to iPhone Prices
Cuba’s Grid Fails Again as Fuel Crisis Deepens
Nazca Lines Flight Crash Kills Thirteen as Peru Suspends Aerodiana
OpenAI Faces Demands for Full Disclosure After Models Breach Hugging Face
FIFA’s Private-Investment Plan for World Cup Rights Draws European Revolt
Why Americans Queue for $15 Ice Cream and a $100 Caviar Pint
OpenAI Sued After ChatGPT Allegedly Discouraged Emergency Care Before Near-Fatal Embolism
Miliband Sets Climate and International Law at Centre of UK Diplomacy
Trump Readies New Tariffs as Temporary Global Levy Nears Expiry
Morgan Stanley Builds a Wall Street Lead in AI Infrastructure Finance
High Prices Push Coffee Drinkers Toward Whole Beans and Home Brewing
Spain Defeats Argentina in Extra Time to Win Second World Cup
Venezuela’s Earthquake Devastation Turns U.S. Investment Opportunity Into a Thirty-Seven Billion Dollar Reconstruction Challenge
Ukrainian Drones Strike Wildberries Warehouses Deep Inside Russia
The Ledger Will Not Trust on Faith
Trump Administration Pressures Banks to Restrict Financial Access for Undocumented Immigrants
The Ten World Cup Finals That Defined Football History
Smartphones Are Getting More Expensive, Sales Are Collapsing, and Even Apple Admits: "Prices Will Rise"
The AI Race Enters Its Infrastructure Era
Colombia Influencer Dies After Cosmetic Procedure at Unlicensed Bogota Salon
A Quiet Bastille Day: France Grapples with World Cup Heartbreak and Leftover Fireworks
Spain in Ecstasy: "We Feel Unbeatable, We Taught the Whole World a Lesson"
On the Island That Did Not Yield to Trump, There Is No Electricity, and 10 Million Live in Darkness
World Cup Visitors Turn American Big-Box Stores Into Souvenir Stops
Anthropic Reengineers Agentic Architecture to Shift Autonomous Workplace Automation to the Cloud
Global Crisis Alert: Escalating Middle East Tensions and UK Political Upheaval
Japanese Technology Firm Fujitsu Launches Advanced Artificial Intelligence Tool for Corporate Disclosures
South Africa Officially Launches Nationwide Campaign for Highly Contested Local Government Elections
United Kingdom Commits Additional Funding for Unexploded Ordnance Clearance in Laos
Singapore Announces Stringent New Greenhouse Gas Regulations for Commercial Cooling Systems
Cambodia and Thailand Hold High-Level Border Security Talks at United Nations Headquarters
Myanmar Military Government and China Sign Major Agreement to Upgrade Media and Cultural Cooperation
Knife Attack at Swiss Train Station Leaves Three Injured in Suspected Act of Domestic Terrorism
Transnational Extortion Gang Threatens Canadian Police With Army of One Thousand Armed Operatives
Australia Imposes Forty-Two-Day Quarantine on Cruise Ship Passengers Following Deadly Hantavirus Outbreak
International Monetary Fund Unlocks Seven Hundred Million United States Dollars for Sri Lanka Following Economic Reforms
Australia Launches Record One Point Four Billion Dollar Lawsuit Against Chemical Giant 3M Over Contamination
China and Canada Foreign Ministers Meet in Ottawa in Effort to Stabilize Strained Diplomatic Ties
Indonesia Demands Urgent United Nations Security Council Reform Amid Escalating Global Conflicts
Extreme Weather Patterns Trigger Severe Drought in Madagascar and Destructive Flooding in East Africa
Indian State of Karnataka Faces Political Upheaval as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah Abruptly Resigns
Philippines and Japan Reaffirm Defense Ties as Crucial for Indo-Pacific Regional Stability
Norway Joins French Nuclear Deterrence Initiative in Major Shift for European Security Architecture
×