The Minderoo Foundation has announced grants totaling nearly AU$6 million ($4 million) to support research to combat lethal humidity.

Recipients were announced during an event to mark the official launch of the Lethal Humidity Global Council (LHGC), which aims to drive near-term policy outcomes that match the scale of climate change, through research that exposes the already significant impacts of lethal humidity on human survival and health, food and water security, migration, and productivity. Funded projects include one led by climate scientists from Oxford University, Australian National University, and the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales to create a global early warning system for deadly humid heatwaves; and another led by researchers at Harvard University, which will follow hundreds of working women in the poorest communities in South Asia to map the heat and humidity they are exposed to for an entire year—and the impact on their health and livelihoods.

“We must achieve Real Zero fossil fuel emissions as soon as possible,” said Minderoo Foundation founder and Giving Pledge signatory Andrew Forrest. “Net Zero has become a meaningless mantra that just buys companies and governments time while they continue to burn fossil fuels, as long as they promise to use offsets or carbon capture and storage (CCS). But there is no evidence that offsets or CCS can scale to take up even a fraction of our emissions. The only solution is to stop burning fossil fuels.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/nicoletaionescu)