Tropics climate peril
IT has been dubbed “Earth’s bulging waistline”: the phenomenon that’s seeing the hot and humid conditions of the tropics spreading polewards in both directions from the equator.
Even if we succeed in limiting global warming to 2C, as pledged by 195 nations under the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement, climate change will nonetheless touch many aspects of our lives in significant ways.
James Cook University’s State of the Tropics initiative is a global alliance of leading tropical institutions focused on some of the major social, economic, and environmental issues facing tropical regions now and in the future.
By 2050, more than 50 per cent of the world’s population will be found in tropical regions near the equator, and mostly in developing nations.
Project manager of the State of the Tropics initiative Ann Penny said these would be the hardest hit in a warmer world.
“A small change of temperature in a region with little seasonal variability can have very significant impacts on the environment, food security, political stability, and human health,” she said.
“The communities that will feel some of the worst consequences of climate change are not the ones responsible; the nations of the tropics contribute less than 10 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions.”
Another problem is the spread of vector-borne tropical diseases: those carried by ticks, mosquitoes, and other insects.
Currently these are largely confined to the tropics but in a warmer world they are going to branch out, potentially bringing dengue fever to Sydney or malaria to London.
“Already in South and South-east Asia there have been major increases in dengue, leishmaniasis and trematodiases,” Ms Penny said.
“Before 1970, only nine countries had experienced severe dengue epidemics but by 2015, it was endemic in more than 100 countries.”
But it’s not just disease that will affect health.
Senior researcher with the State of the Tropics Mark Ziembicki said it was predicted that lethal heatwaves would become more common.
“Currently around 30 per cent of the world’s population is exposed to 20 days per year of a potentially lethal combination of heat and humidity,” Dr Ziembicki said.
“Recent research has revealed that this could rise to 74 per cent by 2100 under the worst-case scenarios for climate change.”
International Day of Tropics was celebrated June 29. the on