A child born in 2020 faces up to 24 times more natural disasters than their grandparents did

A child born in 2020 faces up to 24 times more natural disasters than their grandparents did. Source: Getty

It's long been recognised that children will bear the brunt of the impacts of climate change - a crisis not of their own making. But a new report from Save the Children puts a number on how many more climate-induced natural disasters children born today will experience. It's found that an average one-year-old faces a future with up to 24 times more fires, floods, crop failures, droughts and heatwaves than their grandparents.

The report, "Born into the Climate Crisis", uses modelling for 178 countries to predict how climate change will affect children born in 2020 over their lifetimes.
The report finds that this generation - now aged one-year-old - will on average experience up to 24 times as many climate-induced extreme weather events as someone born in the 1960s.
According to the report, the low- and middle-income countries will be disproportionately affected, even though they contribute less to global emissions.