07-05-2025
How much will climate change affect YOU? Scientists predict your lifetime exposure to heatwaves, floods, droughts, and wildfires - and it's bad news for Gen Alpha
Climate change is already having a catastrophic effect around the world, evident from European heatwaves to violent typhoons in the Pacific.
But the younger you are, the more likely these climate disasters will become the norm.
Researchers at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in Belgium warn that climate change will have a 'disproportionate burden' on the youth.
Today's children – so under 18s born in 2007 or later known as 'Gen Alpha' – will endure more climate extremes then any previous generation.
Depending on whether we curb our greenhouse gas emissions, up 1.5 billion children alive today face 'unprecedented lifetime exposure' to heatwaves, for example.
And 431 million of today's children face a lifetime of food shortages due to crop failures, the researchers predict.
Study author Wim Thiery, professor of climate science at VUB, said 'vulnerable children experience the worst escalation of climate extremes'.
'World leaders must step up to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lessen the climate burden on today's youth,' he said.
This graph shows the cumulative number of heatwaves faced since birth by children born in Brussels, Belgium, in 2020 under three climate change scenarios - 1.5°C (blue), 2.5°C (orange), and 3.5°C (red). The unprecedented exposure threshold (dashed grey line) is largely surpassed, implying that children in this location will face unprecedented lifetime heatwave exposure regardless of the scenario
For the new study, the team combined demographic data and climate model projections of the climate extremes around the world.
The team looked at six different climate extremes – heatwaves, crop failures, wildfires, droughts, floods and tropical cyclones.
They then calculated the number of children globally aged 5-18 in 2025 who will face 'unprecedented lifetime exposure' to the six climate extremes.
They define 'unprecedented lifetime exposure' as a stringent threshold that varies by location and type of climate extreme.
'It identifies populations facing climate extremes far beyond what could be expected without man-made climate change,' said lead author Dr Luke Grant at VUB.
They imagined three different scenarios – where humans manage to limit global warming by 1.5°C (2.7°F), 2.5°C (4.5°F) and 3.5°C (6.3°F) by the year 2100.
At present, the world is only 0.2°C away from the 1.5°C threshold, which the legally-binding Paris Agreement is forcing global powers to try and avoid.
Overall, the team found there's an 'urgent need' to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to protect the wellbeing of current and future young generations.
In all, 855 million children worldwide will face unprecedented exposure to heatwaves even if we manage to limit global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F), they reveal.
But if global warming reaches a more serious 3.5°C by 2100, a whopping 1.5 billion children worldwide will be similarly exposed.
Although heatwaves will be the most prominent threat, the five other extremes will affect many millions of today's children, regardless of warming scenario.
For example, under a 1.5 °C warming scenario, 119 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 will face unprecedented lifetime exposure to wildfires – but this increases to 147 million under a 3.5°C scenario.
Similarly, under a 1.5 °C warming scenario, 132 million children aged 5-18 in 2025 will face unprecedented lifetime exposure to river floods – but this increases to 191 million under a 3.5 °C scenario.
Overall, the highest fraction of children facing unprecedented lifetime exposure is for heatwaves (92 per cent of 2020 birth cohort with 3.5°C of warming), followed by crop failures (around 30 per cent) and river floods (around 15 per cent).
Even if we successfully limit global warming to 1.5°C by 2100, 52 per cent of children born in 2020 will face unprecedented heatwave exposure, compared to only 16 per cent of those born in 1960.
'The numbers vary per climate extreme, but the general pattern is the same,' Professor Thiery told MailOnline.
'The younger the generation, and the higher the warming pathway, the higher the percentage of the birth cohort facing unprecedented lifetime exposure to the considered climate extreme.'
Also, the team highlight that the most 'socioeconomically vulnerable' children, such as those living in impoverished communities around the world will 'experience the worst escalation of climate extremes'.
Under current climate policies, the most socioeconomically vulnerable children born in 2020 will almost all (95 per cent) endure unprecedented exposure to heatwaves in their lifetime, compared to 78 per cent for the least vulnerable group.
The study, published today in the journal Nature, highlights the 'social injustice' of climate change and its impacts.
Those born in the last five or 10 years, who are not responsible for the current rate of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, will 'bear the brunt'.
Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children International, said: 'Across the world, children are forced to bear the brunt of a crisis they are not responsible for.
'Dangerous heat that puts their health and learning at risk; cyclones that batter their homes and schools; creeping droughts that shrivel up crops and shrink what's on their plates.
'Amid this daily drumbeat of disasters, children plead with us not to switch off.
'This new research shows there is still hope, but only if we act urgently and ambitiously to rapidly limit warming temperatures to 1.5 °C, and truly put children front and centre of our response to climate change.'
Carbon emissions and the greenhouse effect: A primer
The greenhouse effect is the reason our planet is getting too hot to live on.
CO2 released by human activity is accumulating as an 'insulating blanket' around the Earth, trapping more of the sun's heat in our atmosphere.
CO2 - and other greenhouse gases - are emitted by actions such as burning fossil fuels like coal for energy, burning forests to make way for livestock and
Fertilisers containing nitrogen produce nitrous oxide emissions - another greenhouse gas.
Meanwhile, fluorinated gases are emitted from equipment and products that use these gases.
Such emissions have a very strong warming effect, up to 23,000 times greater than CO2.
