Areas of South America were also cited in recent studies that highlight the dangers of urbanization on both local and transnational climates, and for a country like Brazil, one of the highest populated nations in the world as well as the majority holder of the Amazon rainforest. The United Nations Development Programme highlights the Amazon rainforest as serving a "key function in the global climate systems," granted its profound usefulness in capturing CO2 emissions.[52] UN research has indicated that because of Brazil's climate being so intimately reliant on the health of the rainforest, deforestation measures are currently seen as having adverse effects on the rainforest's "natural adaptive capacities" towards extreme climate shifts, thus predisposing Brazil to what are expected to be increased volatility in temperature and rainfall patterns.[52] More specifically, it is expected that if global warming continues on its current path without vast mitigation strategies being put in place, what is currently predicted to be an average 2 °C increase in temperature at the global scale could look like a 4 °C within Brazil and the surrounding Amazon region.[52] Rapid urbanization in other countries will also result in higher need for resources. This includes resources that will cause further deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest to obtain.