People Exposed to Climate Change: December 2025-February 2026

Read the full report: People Exposed to Climate Change: December 2025-February 2026

During the past three months (December, January, and February), the effects of human-caused climate change — mainly from burning coal, oil, and methane gas — were evident in most regions of the world, particularly in the form of extreme heat. 

This analysis uses Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index (CSI) to determine the influence of climate change on temperatures around the globe during this period.

Key findings

• Every day from December 2025 to February 2026, more than one in six people on the planet experienced temperatures with a strong climate change influence.

• In 124 countries (home to nearly 2.5 billion people), the average person experienced at least 30 days with temperatures strongly influenced by climate change.

• In 45 countries, all of the risky heat days in the past three months were driven by climate change.

• Nearly 228 million people experienced 30 or more days of risky heat added by climate change during the last three months, and most of these people (81%) live in Africa.

Data

• Download data for Dec 1, 2025-Feb 28, 2026, for 252 countries, territories, and dependencies and 960 cities around the world.

• Explore interactive maps and rankings for countries and cities across six continents.

Major funding provided by the Bezos Earth Fund