In a 1.5 degrees Celsius warming scenario, 52% of people born in 2020 will be exposed to climate-change-induced extreme weather events throughout their lifetime, such as heatwaves and droughts, compared to only 16% of individuals born in 1960, according to a recent study.
“People born in 1960 and spending their life in Brussels are projected to experience three heatwaves in their lifetime. In the 1.5 °C pathway, the 2020 birth cohort is projected to experience nearly 11 heatwaves, yet this increases to 18 and 26 heatwaves in pathways reaching 2.5 °C and 3.5 °C, respectively, by the end of the century,” the researchers explained.
“More ambitious policies are needed to achieve the goal of the Paris Agreement of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C by 2100 relative to the 2.7 °C warming expected under current policies, especially as the most vulnerable groups have more members projected to face unprecedented exposure to heatwaves. Children would reap the direct benefits of this increased ambition: a total of 613 million children born between 2003 and 2020 would then avoid unprecedented lifetime exposure to heatwaves,” the researchers added.
Unprecedented lifetime exposure refers to less than one in 10,000 chance of being exposed to extreme weather events in a world that was not experiencing man-made climate change.
Greenhouse gas emissions caused by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas are the main cause of this man-made climate crisis. The researchers warn that if this harmful status quo of high levels of greenhouse gases continues, it might result in 111 million children from 177 countries born in 2020 being exposed to “unprecedented heatwave exposure in a world that warms to 3.5 °C compared with 62 million in a 1.5 °C pathway.”
“Socioeconomically vulnerable people have a consistently higher chance of facing unprecedented lifetime heatwave exposure compared with the least vulnerable members of their generation,” they further highlighted. “Socioeconomically vulnerable groups have lower adaptive capacity and face more constraints when it comes to implementing effective adaptation measures. Our results highlight that precisely these groups with the highest socioeconomic vulnerability and lowest adaptation potential face the highest chance for unprecedented heatwave exposure.”
In the event that global warming increases by 3.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels instead of 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100, the percentage of lifetime exposure to heatwaves will shoot up to 92% from 52% of people born in 2020.
“Climate extremes also affect society through economic impacts, including the rising cost of living due to supply chain disruptions and taxation to recover public infrastructure. For instance, climate change endangers staple crop production in the main breadbasket countries that supply most of our caloric intake globally, forcing market instabilities that only the wealthiest can cope with. These missing non-local impacts make our estimates conservative,” the researchers further warned. The study was published in the journal Nature on May 7, 2025.