The entire world population could be affected by climate change

Almost 100,000 studies published between 1951 and 2018 were studied by a team of researchers and sifted through them, aided by computer systems. “We have overwhelming evidence that climate change is affecting every continent, every system,” study author Max Callaghan told AFP. With researchers from the Berlin-based Mercator Research Institute, he mapped the globe and mapped the impacts of climate change

The result is that 80% of the Earth, home to 85% of the world’s population, is covered by studies predicting warming-related changes in temperature and precipitation. Studies disproportionately document impacts in richer countries, while they are less documented in poorer countries, Callaghan said. Trends in rainfall and temperature changes in Africa could be linked to climate change, “but we don’t have many studies documenting the consequences of these trends,” he says, calling it a “blind spot in our knowledge of impacts. Research on climate change has grown exponentially in recent years, with about 1,500 studies published between 1951 and 1990, and 75,000 to 85,000 in the last five years.

People qualify their feeling by choosing from a range of 6 words, ranging from serenity to anxiety, 30% say they experience anxiety, a rate that can be described as very high for such an emotion. This is not correlated to the country’s vulnerability: it responds more to an individual equation.

Anxiety is very high in Indonesia and Japan, but it is low in Chile or Brazil. Finally, contrary to popular belief, climate anxiety is much less felt in Europe than elsewhere (19%, and 21% in France), and it is not young people who are most concerned. But it is true that older people feel it less.

When it comes to defining the place that the environment and climate occupy in relation to other issues in different countries, the situation is the opposite of what is measured in terms of concern and the recognition of effects.

In the countries of Europe, North America and even Asia, people continue to place the environment in the top 5 of their concerns, despite the inflationary crisis, the pressure of social, security or migratory themes. Similarly, in these countries, the fight against climate change is considered the top priority (compared to various pollution, for example).