Almost every country on Earth could experience extremely hot years every other year by 2030, according to new research 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 United States, the European Union, India and Russia – to make regional warming predictions by 2030.
The researchers found that 92% 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.