New research from the University of Oxford has ranked 205 of the world's largest cities by their risk from extreme heat, identifying where people are most in danger as global temperatures rise. Published in Sustainable Cities and Society, the study weighed each city on three fronts: how hot it gets, how vulnerable its population is, and how well it can cope.
India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Ghana host the largest number of cities with high risk scores, and more than 95% of the most at-risk cities are in South and Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Major tourist destinations and international business hubs, including Cairo (Egypt), Bangkok (Thailand), Hanoi (Vietnam) and Jaipur (India) are also ranked in the top 50. The analysis identifies the city of Al Basrah in Iraq as the world’s most at-risk.