As world leaders met at the COP26 summit to debate how to tackle climate change, misinformation began to circulate around social media. While today you hardly find people that deny that climate change exists and is happening, misleading claims arise on either the causes or the effects of climate change.

Some posts claim that global warming is good as it will make parts of the earth more habitable and that cold kills more people than heat does. Such type of arguments often cherry-pick favourable facts to support such claims and ignore other facts that would contradict such claims entirely.

The reality is that the impacts of climate change are felt in every region of the planet. Warmer climate in certain parts of the world will lead to extreme rainfall, affecting living conditions and the ability to grow crops.

And while currently, more people die as a result of cold weather rather than hot, the IPCC predicts that heat-related deaths will increase with a global warming of 1.5 degrees.

Any small local benefits from warmer weather are expected to be outweighed by the risks of more frequent spells of extreme heat.