A recent study has revealed that more than half of the children born in 2020 may experience unprecedented exposure to heatwaves during their lifetimes, compared to just 16% of those born in 1960, even if global warming is constrained to 1.5°C.
By analysing demographic trends alongside projections of climate extremes, researchers estimated the proportion of each generation born between 1960 and 2020 likely to encounter such heightened exposures.
The study published in Nature said that the younger a person, the higher their chances of experiencing unprecedented climate extremes, including heatwaves, river floods, and droughts — children in the tropics will bear the worst burden.
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“In this new study, living an unprecedented life means that without climate change, one would have less than a 1-in-10,000 chance of experiencing that many climate extremes across one’s lifetime,” lead author Luke Grant, a climate scientist at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, said.
The authors wrote, “Under a 1.5 degrees Celsius pathway, 52% of people born in 2020 will experience unprecedented lifetime exposure to heatwaves.” Further, under a scenario of 3.5 degrees Celsius warming, “over 90% will endure such exposure throughout their lives,” Grant said.
The study’s findings underscore the social inequities inherent in climate change and its consequences. According to the authors, under existing climate policies, nearly 95% of the most socio-economically disadvantaged children born in 2020 are projected to face unprecedented heatwave exposure during their lifetimes, compared to 78% among their least vulnerable counterparts.
“It is precisely the most vulnerable children who bear the brunt of intensifying climate extremes,” senior author Wim Thiery, professor of climate science at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, said. The team also added that their limited access to resources and adaptive measures places them at significantly greater risk.
