1 in 5 People Say Climate Change Has Had a Big Impact on Their Daily Lives

From December 2024 to February 2025, the effects of human-induced climate change were evident in nearly all regions of the world, new analysis from Climate Central has found. 

The report, which examined how climate change influenced temperatures around the world over the past three months, found that about one in five people globally—or 1.8 billion people—experienced temperatures that were strongly influenced by climate change every single day. And in half of the analyzed countries, and 287 cities around the world, the average person experienced temperatures strongly influenced by climate change for at least one-third of the three-months. The findings come as the planet breached 1.5°C of warming above pre-industrial temperatures last year—a critical threshold that nations were striving to avoid under the Paris Agreement.

“We found that there were warmer than normal temperatures caused by climate change almost everywhere around the planet,” says Kristina Dahl, vice president for science at Climate Central. This January ranked as the warmest in the 176-year global climate record, according to data from the U.S. National Oceanic and and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information. Temperatures in Europe, Canada, South America, Africa, and much of Australia and Antarctica were above average, according to data from Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Within the same three-month period analyzed, about 394 million people experienced 30 or more “risky heat days.” These are defined as days where the local temperature was hotter than 90% of daily temperatures observed between 1991-2020.

Read more: Why Extreme Heat Is So Bad for the Human Body

Risky heat days are “associated with a temperature threshold that carries additional risks for human health,” says Dahl. “Above that temperature, you start to see increased heat related mortality.” In February, parts of Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, and the United Republic of Tanzania all saw temperatures soar during a heat wave. Hospitals in Uganda reported an increase in heat-related illnesses, including dehydration and heat stroke, according to local news sources. 

The research showed that a high number of risky heat days is far more common in the Global South: 74% of people who experienced 30 or more days of risky heat lived in Africa, while those living in Brazil, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea also saw 30 or more risky heat days. 

“[It] really reinforces something that we see consistently with climate change, [which] is that the people who have contributed the least to the problem are often disproportionately exposed and impacted,” says Dahl. 

In the U.S., around 45% of cities analyzed experienced average temperatures that were normal or warmer-than-normal, while 14 cities, mostly in the west, experienced at least three weeks’ worth of days where average temperatures were twice as likely to be impacted by climate change.

“These [findings] are just the latest reminders that climate change is happening here and now it’s not something of the future,” says Dahl. “People are experiencing it every day in their lives around the world.”