Climate change will likely affect more than 55 million people around the Indian coastal regions and could submerge land presently home to more than half a billion people across countries as global temperature rise hits 4 degrees Celsius, warned a new report issued by Climate Central - a US based non-profit research organization.
The report warned that a 4 degrees Celsius increase in temperature could submerge 145 million in China, according to International Business Times.
"A 4C warming scenario could lock in enough sea level rise to submerge land inhabited by half or more of today's population in Shanghai and Shantou, China; Haora (Howrah), Calcutta and Mumbai, India; Hanoi, Vietnam; and Khulna, Bangladesh," the report read.
Twelve other nations, including Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Indonesia, have more than 10 million people living on land at risk each. Outside of Asia, the most threatened nation is the United States with roughly 25 million people on implicated land, reported the Wire.
The findings come mere weeks ahead of a UN climate summit, scheduled to be held in Paris from November 30 to December 11. The main aim of the summit is to limit the rise in Earth's temperature to two degree Celsius.
According to the report, limiting warming to two degrees Celsius would reduce the risk for 35 million people in India and 64 million in China. The Asian megacities of Shanghai and Hong Kong in China and Mumbai in India, however, in spite of limiting the temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, would still have 25 percent of its lands submerged in the impending rise in sea level.
Cutting down on carbon emission to limit a two-degree rise in temperature will reduce the number of victims to 130 million people globally.
The climate research group claims that limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius would cut exposure by more than half in the United States, China and India, the top three carbon emitting nations in the world, as well as in other countries.
