The climate threat|Global challenges

Illustration image. AP  

Billions risk ending up outside the "climate niche"  

Billions of people risk ending up outside the "human climate niche" in which we thrived for millennia, according to a new study according to The Guardian. 

The world is heading for 2.7 degrees of warming at the current rate, which means that two billion people will live with an annual average temperature of 29 degrees in 2030. 

Up to a billion people may migrate to cooler places that remain within the climate niche, but even these will experience more frequent heat waves and droughts, according to the study.  

- The costs of global warming are often measured in economic terms, but our study underlines the enormous human cost, says British professor Tim Linton, who led the study. 

Dry crops in fields in Italy in the summer of 2022. Luca Bruno / AP  

EU battle to wait for climate-resistant crops 

Olives in Spain, sunflowers in Hungary, corn in Italy and Romania – Europe's agriculture was hit hard by last year's severe drought. According to some, the solution spells out genetically modified crops, while others believe that it is just an excuse for not introducing more sustainable farming methods.  

In July, the European Commission is expected to propose a loosening of the law that regulates how crops are produced, AFP reports.  

According to EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, new crops would promote the sustainability of the agricultural sector. 

Several of the member states are against the bill. One of them is Austria, which criticized a preliminary study of the proposal for being based on assumptions instead of facts and demanded that the risk to the environment and health be analyzed carefully.