The drought dangers of blowing past Paris

• Researchers with the U.K'.s University of East Anglia assessed the risks of droughts of one year or longer in a 30-year period under multiple warming scenarios.
• They range from limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels — the most ambitious Paris goal — all the way to catastrophic warming of 4°C.

Why it matters: Even in a 1.5°C scenario drought grows considerably — and the world is on track for much more warming absent radical emissions cuts.

• But the odds of bad drought rise with more warming. For instance, in a 3°C world, more than half the agricultural land in each nation analyzed is projected to have severe drought in a 30-year stretch.
• It sees 80%-100% of people in Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia and Ghana, and nearly 50% of Indian residents, exposed to severe drought lasting at least a year or longer in a 30-year period.

Read the study.