A new study has found an “alarming generational gap” in vulnerability to climate extremes. (Image credit: Bloomberg/Contributor via Getty Images)
Scientists warn that newborns today will face climate extremes on a scale never seen before, with the poorest bearing the brunt of the crisis.
By examining people's vulnerability to extreme climate events such as heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires, cyclones and crop failures, scientists found that children born in 2020 are two to seven times more likely to experience a 10,000-year event than those born in 1960. This is based on the assumption that warming will continue under current policies and reach 4.9 degrees Fahrenheit (2.7 degrees Celsius) by 2100.
If the world warms even faster and reaches 6.5 F (3.5 C) by 2100, 92% of today's 5-year-olds will experience dangerous heat at some point in their lives, 29% will experience crop failure, and 14% will experience flooding.
By comparison, the researchers found that 16 percent of people born in 1960 had experienced extreme heat in their lifetime. The research team published their findings today (May 7) in the journal Nature.
“By stabilizing our climate at about 1.5°C [2.7°F] above pre-industrial temperatures, about half of today’s young people would experience an unprecedented number of heatwaves during their lifetime. Under a 3.5°C [6.5°F] scenario, more than 90% would be exposed throughout their lifetime,” said lead author Luke Grant, a physical scientist at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, in a statement.
“A similar pattern is observed for other extreme climate events studied, albeit with slightly smaller proportions of the population affected. However, the same unfair intergenerational differences in unprecedented impacts exist,” he added.
Environmental anxiety is widespread among children: according to a YouGov poll commissioned by Greenpeace, almost 80% of children under 12 are concerned about climate change. The impacts of climate change and the human suffering it causes are already visible, with unprecedented heatwaves, storms, droughts, floods, die-offs and wildfires occurring around the world.
Still, quantifying the hardships that changes to Earth’s complex climate systems will impose on future generations remains difficult. To get a rough picture, the researchers behind the new study analyzed demographic data for every region on the planet, combining population and life expectancy projections with climate model projections for three emissions scenarios.
Sourse: www.livescience.com
