Floods, Droughts and 24 Times More Heatwaves: The Climate Future Facing Today’s Kids

Earlier this month, the United Nations Environment Programme announced that there is no realistic pathway to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, a stated goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement. The grim milestone highlights the abject failure of governments around the world to sufficiently reduce greenhouse gas emissions—while also confirming that the threats posed by climate change will only intensify in the coming decades. Commenting on the announcement, Debra Roberts, former co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, stated, “We are clearly entering uncharted territory.”

In this new reality, the pace and impact of climate change will only accelerate and intensify—significantly raising the stakes of climate-related threats to the global economy, social stability, and public health. According to the UNEP report, low lying islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans may become uninhabitable, food production could decline by as much as 14% in parts of the world, and extreme heat waves that once came every century are now expected to occur every 10 to 20 years. 

Researchers with the the Brussels-based university VUB found that, on average, a person born in the year 2020 will now experience an average of nearly three times as many floods, five times as many droughts, and 24 times as many heatwaves than they would have without global warming. In certain parts of the world, the relative frequency of these and other natural disasters is forecasted to be even greater. 

Using data from MyClimateFuture, Climate Crisis 247 identified the climate disaster implications of the current global warming trend for someone born in the year 2020 across eight different global regions. For each region, we listed the forecasted number of wildfires, river flooding, crop failures, tropical cyclones, droughts, and heatwaves over a single human lifetime, relative to the incidence rate absent the climate change phenomenon. Global regions are listed in alphabetical order. 

8. East Asia and Pacific

• Wildfire frequency in a lifetime: 1.7x more than without climate change
• River flooding frequency in a lifetime: 2.5x more than without climate change
• Crop failure frequency in a lifetime: 2.2x more than without climate change
• Tropical cyclone frequency in a lifetime: 2.1x more than without climate change
• Drought frequency in a lifetime: 3.1x more than without climate change
• Heatwave frequency in a lifetime: 16.9x more than without climate change

7. Europe and Central Asia

• Wildfire frequency in a lifetime: 1.8x more than without climate change
• River flooding frequency in a lifetime: 1.7x more than without climate change
• Crop failure frequency in a lifetime: 0.6x more than without climate change
• Tropical cyclone frequency in a lifetime: 3.6x more than without climate change
• Drought frequency in a lifetime: 3.8x more than without climate change
• Heatwave frequency in a lifetime: 13.4x more than without climate change

6. Latin America and Caribbean

• Wildfire frequency in a lifetime: 1.5x more than without climate change
• River flooding frequency in a lifetime: 2.0x more than without climate change
• Crop failure frequency in a lifetime: 4.2x more than without climate change
• Tropical cyclone frequency in a lifetime: 1.5x more than without climate change
• Drought frequency in a lifetime: 7.8x more than without climate change
• Heatwave frequency in a lifetime: 27.6x more than without climate change

5. Middle East and North Africa

• Wildfire frequency in a lifetime: 1.3x more than without climate change
• River flooding frequency in a lifetime: 4.5x more than without climate change
• Crop failure frequency in a lifetime: 4.6x more than without climate change
• Tropical cyclone frequency in a lifetime: 3.5x more than without climate change
• Drought frequency in a lifetime: 10.6x more than without climate change
• Heatwave frequency in a lifetime: 31.9x more than without climate change

4. North America

• Wildfire frequency in a lifetime: 1.8x more than without climate change
• River flooding frequency in a lifetime: 1.4x more than without climate change
• Crop failure frequency in a lifetime: 2.1x more than without climate change
• Tropical cyclone frequency in a lifetime: 2.0x more than without climate change
• Drought frequency in a lifetime: 6.6x more than without climate change
• Heatwave frequency in a lifetime: 18.3x more than without climate change

3. South Asia

• Wildfire frequency in a lifetime: 1.2x more than without climate change
• River flooding frequency in a lifetime: 3.0x more than without climate change
• Crop failure frequency in a lifetime: 5.5x more than without climate change
• Tropical cyclone frequency in a lifetime: 1.8x more than without climate change
• Drought frequency in a lifetime: 2.0x more than without climate change
• Heatwave frequency in a lifetime: 19.9x more than without climate change

2. Sub-Saharan Africa

• Wildfire frequency in a lifetime: 1.3x more than without climate change
• River flooding frequency in a lifetime: 4.6x more than without climate change
• Crop failure frequency in a lifetime: 4.3x more than without climate change
• Tropical cyclone frequency in a lifetime: 1.8x more than without climate change
• Drought frequency in a lifetime: 6.3x more than without climate change
• Heatwave frequency in a lifetime: 38.2x more than without climate change

1. World

• Wildfire frequency in a lifetime: 2.2x more than without climate change
• River flooding frequency in a lifetime: 2.6x more than without climate change
• Crop failure frequency in a lifetime: 3.4x more than without climate change
• Tropical cyclone frequency in a lifetime: 1.4x more than without climate change
• Drought frequency in a lifetime: 4.6x more than without climate change
• Heatwave frequency in a lifetime: 23.8x more than without climate change