2—Climate change—it’s existential and an impact multiplier.

Climate change could lead to “global catastrophes” up to and including human extinction, a new study has found.

And scientists and policymakers are making it more likely by failing to face the possibility head-on, according to the study, published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We must do the math of disaster in order to avoid it,” Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said in a statement.

Some of the potential global disasters the team identified were “tipping points” that could pitch the planet into an unstoppable cycle of rapid warming that feeds on itself.

Such a scenario could occur if heating causes the massive release of methane from permafrost, or carbon dioxide from forests, leading to further warming in an ever-accelerating cycle.

But the scientists also highlighted the risk that climate change could exacerbate destabilizing human-caused threats like wars, social inequality, financial crises or political collapse.

By 2070, 2 billion people will be impacted by annual average temperatures above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, up from 30 million today, the researchers found.

“These temperatures and the social and political consequences will directly affect two nuclear powers, and seven maximum containment laboratories housing the most dangerous pathogens,” coauthor Chi Xu of Nanjing University said.