Is there a limit to adaptation?

The Paris agreement aspires to keep global surface temperature warming to below 2°C (or, if possible, 1.5°C) relative to pre-industrial. However, even in this framework, environmental changes will be significant. Especially, humid and warm temperatures (tropical conditions) could become unbearable over some part of the globe, where most of the productivity is related to outdoor human labour (India for instance). Here we question the capacity of populations to adapt to new climate conditions, providing they would evolve in extreme ways. Combining different datasets of health and climate local observations, we aim to illustrate the importance to limit the increase in wet bulb temperatures, highlighting the possible human, economic and environmental consequences failing doing that. We present a new working project (RICHES: Regional Impacts of Chinese Heat and Humidity Extremes on Society) that will bring together scientists from health, agriculture and climate fields to highlight potential vulnerability of Chinese society against extreme heat and drought conditions.