Today’s children, especially those who live in low -income countries, will live an “unprecedented” future, in which they will suffer the disproportionate consequences of climate change that no human generation has lived before.
In the best case, if the world manages to limit global warming to 1.5 ° C by the end of the century -the promison set in the Paris Agreement -, about 52 percent of those born in 2020 (62 million people) will experience an unprecedented exhibition to heat waves throughout their lives.
But, if the emissions raise the global temperature 2.7 ºC above the pre -industrial levels, about one hundred million of the 120 million children born in 2020 (83 percent of the total) will live climate conditions never seen, and if the temperature exceeds 3.5 ° C they will be 92%.
These children will be victims of heat waves, bad harvests, floods, tropical cyclones, forest droughts and fires, consequences of continuous atmospheric warming that we have not been able to or wanted to stop, according to a study by the Vrije University of Brussels (Vub), Belgium, and the Save the Children organization, whose details have been published this Wednesday in the journal.
The difference between exceeding 1.5 ºC or reaching 2.7 ºC is that it would reduce the number of affected by 38 million, people who could be saved from this disaster just by reducing the use of fossil fuels, according to the study.
The authors explain that the consequences of global warming will be mortal for children and for their physical and mental health, because they will make access to food and drinking water difficult and force to close schools, all this will mean “living an unprecedented life.”
Living an unprecedented life means that, without anthropogenic climate change, “one would have less than a 10,000 possibility of experiencing so many climatic extremes throughout his life,” says Luke Grant, a scientist in the VUB and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) and main author of the report.
Generational impact of climate change
Combining demographic data and projections of climatic models of climatic ends for each place on the planet, the authors calculated the percentage of each generation born between 1960 and 2020 that will face an unprecedented exhibition of climatic extremes.
Thus, they observed that the younger a person is, the greater their probability of suffering the consequences of climate change.
Even if it is possible to limit global warming to 1.5 ºC, 52% of children born in 2020 will be exposed to unprecedented heat waves, compared to only 16% of those born in 1960, the report warns.
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“Stabilizing our climate around 1.5 ° C above pre -industrial temperatures, approximately half of today’s young people will be exposed to an unprecedented number of heat waves throughout their lives. In a set of 3.5 ° C, more than 90% will suffer that exposure throughout their lives,” Grant warns.
But if the increase in global temperature was limited to 1.5 ºC instead of reaching 2.7 ºC, 38 million children would avoid being exposed to unprecedented heat waves, 8 million would avoid loss of crops, 5 million would avoid floods and tropical cyclones, 2 million would avoid exposure to droughts and 1.5 million exposure to forest fires throughout their life, details the report.
The social injustice of climate change
The study also reveals the social injustice of climate change and its repercussions.
“The most vulnerable children experience the worst climbing of climatic extremes. With limited resources and options, they face disproportionate risks,” laments Wim Thiery, Professor of Climate Sciences of the VUB climate and main author of the study.
“In the world, children are forced to support the weight of a crisis that are not responsible. Dangerous heat that endangers their health and learning; cyclones that hit their homes and schools; progressive droughts that wire the crops and reduce what is in their dishes. In the midst of this daily rhythm of disasters, children beg us not to disconnect,” denounces the general director of Save the Children International, Inger Ashing.
This research shows that “there is still hope”; But “only if we act urgently and ambitious to quickly limit temperatures to 1.5 ° C, and really place children at the center of our response to climate change,” says Ashing.
“With global emissions that do not stop increasing and the planet only 0.2 ºC of the threshold of 1.5 ° C, world leaders must take a step forward to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the climatic load on today’s young people,”
With EFE information.
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