Global emergence of unprecedented lifetime exposure to climate extremes

Authors: Luke Grant, Inne Vanderkelen, Lukas Gudmundsson, Erich Fischer, Sonia I. Seneviratne, and Wim Thiery.

Summary written by: Marie Cavitte

Research led by climate scientists from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) reveals that millions of today’s young people will live through unprecedented lifetime exposure to heatwaves, crop failures, river floods, droughts, wildfires and tropical storms under current climate policies. If global temperatures rise by 3.5°C by 2100, 92% of children born in 2020 will experience unprecedented heatwave exposure over their lifetime, affecting 111 million children.

Figure 1: Living an unprecedented life – an illustration. The figure shows the cumulative number of heatwaves faced since birth by children born in Brussels, Belgium, in 2020 under three climate change scenarios, reaching 1.5°C (blue), 2.5°C (orange), and 3.5°C (red) global warming by 2100, respectively. 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. Credit: Grant et al., 2025, Nature

Meeting the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C target could protect 49 million children from this risk. This is only for one birth year; when instead taking into account all children who are between 5 and 18 years old today, this adds up to 1.5 billion children affected under a 3.5°C scenario, and with 654 million children that can be protected by remaining under the 1.5°C threshold. The study also highlights that children with high socioeconomic vulnerability face an even greater likelihood of unprecedented exposure to climate extremes in their lifetime. Deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are urgently needed to safeguard the lives of children all around the world.

Figure 2. Maps display country-level fraction of the 2020 birth cohort affected by unprecedented lifetime exposure to heatwaves for 1.5 °C (c), 2.5 °C (d) and 3.5 °C (e) pathways. Children in tropical countries are relatively worse off under ambitious climate scenarios, while nearly every child around the world will face unprecedented lifetime heatwave exposure under high warming scenarios. Credit: Grant et al., 2025, Nature

Achieving the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C by 2100 is not just an objective, but a lifeline for children. If we succeed in achieving this target, the benefits of such a policy shift would be profound compared to the warming trajectory based on current mitigation Pledges, which currently would lead us to 2.7°C global warming by 2100. 58 million children born in 2020 – almost half of the 120 million children born that year - would be spared from their lives being subject to unprecedented lifetime exposure to climate extremes compared to warming to 2.7°C, 77 million children protected if we compare to a more pessimistic scenario that leads us to 3.5°C. Credit: Born into the Climate Crisis 2. An Unprecedented Life - Protecting Children's Rights in A Changing Climate, Save the Children, 2025.

Read the full publication in Nature here

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