Climate study predicts uninhabitable Earth

The research - from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Purdue University in the US - has forecast climate change over the next three centuries - longer than many similar studies - and suggests that average temperatures could rise as much as 10 or 12°C in that time.

Prof Tony McMichael and Dr Keith Dear from the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University said: ’Much of the climate change debate has been about whether the world will succeed in keeping global warming to the relatively safe level of only 2°C by 2100. But climate change will not stop in 2100, and under realistic scenarios out to 2300, we may be faced with temperature increases of 12°C or more.

’If this happens, our current worries about sea level rise, occasional heat waves and bushfires, biodiversity loss and agricultural difficulties will pale into insignificance beside a major threat - as much as half the currently inhabited globe may simply become too hot for people to live there.’