Bhubaneswar, Jan. 30 -- A new study by researchers at the University of Oxford has warned that accelerating global warming could expose nearly half of the world's population to dangerously high temperatures within the next few decades. According to the analysis, if average global temperatures rise to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, around 3.79 billion people could be living under extreme heat conditions by 2050.

Scientists say the threat is not limited to the distant future. As the planet moves closer to the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold set under the Paris Agreement, heat exposure is expected to increase rapidly. In 2010, extreme heat affected about 23 per cent of the global population, a figure projected to rise to 41 per...