Nearly every person on planet Earth experienced hotter temperatures this summer because of climate change, a new peer-reviewed report from Climate Central finds. Almost 8 billion people across 180 countries and 22 territories, 98% of the global population, experienced higher temperatures that were at least twice as likely because of climate change. More than 6 billion people experienced heat during this meteorological summer that was five times more likely because of climate change. “Breaking heat records has become the norm in 2023,” Friederike Otto, of Imperial College London, said Thursday. “As long as we burn fossil fuels, these events will become more and more intense, providing ever greater barriers to adaptation,” she said. (Washington Post $, Reuters, Axios, National Geographic; Climate Signals background: Extreme heat and heatwaves)
