An Extra Month of Heat Is Coming for Over 600 Million Kids
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story:
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Climate change impacts Earth's entire population, but children are the ones will feel its ravages most acutely in the present and the future.
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A new attribution science study shows that 620 million children between the ages of 0 and 9 will experience an extra month of heat stress per year.
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This humid heat stress overwhelmingly impacts middle- and low-income countries in the Global South—the populations of which are some of the youngest on Earth.
It's been a bad week for climate news.
Earlier this week, the United Nations reported that the world will overshoot the 1.5 degrees Celsius target first set out in the Paris Climate Accords back in 2015. Remaining under this limit offered the best hope for safeguarding the planet from the worst ravages of climate change, but with a majority of countries still continuously burning fossil fuels , the strategy now needs to shift to continuing toward net zero, learning how to adapt to a changing climate, and actively extracting carbon already in the atmosphere—something that has yet to be done sufficiently at scale .
And that bad news keeps coming. A new attribution study in the journal Science Advances meticulously illustrates that the brunt of this excess heat will be disproportionately shouldered by children—specifically, children from birth up to 9 years old. Of course, today's youth will already have to deal with climate change as a major force in their lives, as scientists expect the world to reach a 2.6 degrees Celsius increase by the end of the century if current policies persist (which would be a disastrous outcome). However, this study specifically looks at the impacts of climate change on the here and now, where the youngest generation are already disproportionately affected.
Researchers combined population data from climate models with attribution science—a growing scientific field that accurately pinpoints climate change-related causes to local ecosystems. In particular, they focused on humid heat, which is often considered more dangerous than dry heat because it hampers sweating , our primary method for cooling down. They found that once the world hits 1.5 degrees Celsius (which the U.N. just reported is all but certain), 620 million children will experience an additional month of heat stress. Once temperatures hit 2 degrees Celsius, that number jumps up to 650 million.
The extra month of heat stress is three times the number experienced by adults ages 60 to 69. This is mainly because tropical areas in the Global South are the hardest hit, and those happen to also be the fastest-growing—and therefore youngest—countries in the world. And more heat is a double-dose of bad news for children because they're particularly susceptible to its dangers. As the authors mention, a child's body heats up faster than an adult's, and children don't sweat as much because their nervous systems and sweat glands are still developing. All of this can lead to learning and developmental disabilities.
"Our research highlights that to protect future generations, policymakers must urgently and drastically cut fossil fuel emissions and limit warming in line with the Paris Agreement to stop the most catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis," Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) climate scientist Rosa Pietroiusti, lead author of the study, said in a press statement . "At the same time, a huge increase in the flow of climate finance to developing countries and targeted adaptation measures around the world, such as heat action plans and improved public health systems, will be essential to protect younger generations in a rapidly warming world."
Because a majority of the countries in the study are low- and middle-income countries, not everyone involved has ready access to air conditioners or cooling centers . The authors stress the importance of integrating new strategies for beating the heat, including increased heat-related education and altering school schedules, as well as infrastructure upgrades like reflective roofing materials, passive ventilation, and urban greening (among many others). Strategies will likely need to be tailored for the regions in question.
World governments have been slow change their hydrocarbon-burning habits when motivated by breathing cleaner air, drinking potable water, protecting vulnerable ecosystems, or tapping into limitless energy. Let's hope—at the very least—they will make a change for the children.
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