The American scientific journal PNAS has published a study on the effects of environmental pollution. In addition to temperature changes, the problems would go beyond the depletion of natural resources. The article proposes that by the year 2070, if current conditions continue, at least 3 billion people could end up living in areas considered uninhabitable. Colombia is one of these countries.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Foreign Ministry), Colombia is a country highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, due to the increase in emissions, which is considered a direct risk to the possibilities of sustainable development.
It is precisely towards this point that the study goes. PNAS ensures that there are some scenarios where warming, together with population growth, could have very harmful effects on the environment. If the trend continues for at least 50 years, habitability would be lost in territories where human beings have been able to live for at least 6,000 years.
“Global warming will affect ecosystems, as well as human health, livelihoods, food security, water supplies and economic growth in many ways. Impacts are projected to increase steeply with the degree of warming. For example, warming to 2°C, compared with 1.5°C, is estimated to increase the number of people exposed to climate-related risks and poverty by several hundred million by 2050.” scientific article.
PNAS ensures that the poorest or developing countries are the territories with the highest population density, which, by the way, would be the nations that would be most affected by climate change. There would be several factors that would make these places uninhabitable, the main one being temperature, and this is because the change in the coming decades would be more abrupt than what has been recorded in the last six millennia:
“Compared to the pre-industrial situation 300 years BC, the human-experienced average temperature increase by 2070 will amount to an estimated 7.5°C, about 2.3 times the average global temperature increase. , a discrepancy largely due to the fact that the land will warm much faster than the oceans, but also somewhat amplified by the fact that population growth is projected to be predominantly in warmer places.”
The countries that would be uninhabitable by climate change
According to the map presented by PNAS, the vast majority of countries on the equatorial hemisphere would be the most affected. Starting with America, in the southern region, a country that would practically disappear is Venezuela. Likewise, Guyana and Suriname would succumb to contamination.
Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay would lose at least half of their territory as the Amazon would be almost completely consumed. In the case of Colombia, the uninhabitability would be seen in regions such as the Orinoquía, part of the Andean and the Caribbean.
Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador parts of Mexico would also be devastated. In almost all the nations mentioned there would be a considerable increase in their temperature.
The region of the Sahara desert and sub-Saharan Africa would also be consumed by pollution, the Persian Gulf and eastern nations such as India, the Philippines, Malaysia, among other Asian nations would have severe effects.
“3,500 million people (approximately 30% of the projected world population; would have to move to other areas if the world population remained distributed in relation to temperature in the same way that it has been during the last millennia”, highlights PNAS With Infobae