If today's warming trends hold, today's average six-year-old will face three times the number of climate catastrophes as their grandparents.
For them, rivers will overrun their banks three times more often, and forests will burn twice as much. There'll be 2.5 times more crop failures and 2.3 times as many droughts, not to mention a seven-fold increase in the number of heatwaves.
Such were just some of the findings of a study published this week in the journal Science.
The study was the first of its kind to quantify the intergenerational impact of climate change.
"With this study we lay bare the fundamental injustice of climate change across generations, as well as the responsibilities of today's adults and elders in power," said study co-author Joeri Rogelj of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College.
To come to their findings, roughly 37 researchers from Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), the Imperial College of London, and Nottingham University quantified the lifetime risk of exposure to certain natural disasters for every generation born between 1960-2020. They modeled these risks for every country and under every climate scenario, ranging from a 1 °C rise in global temperatures to a 3.5 °C rise.
Despite the warnings, the study's findings did offer some hope. The data showed that if warming is limited to 1.5 ° C, as under the terms of the Paris Climate Agreement, the risk for extreme heat events is cut in half, while crop failure risk falls 11% and drought risk decreases by 27%.
Time is running out. In August, the UN released its most thorough climate data analysis in years and determined that limiting warming to 1.5 °C or even 2 °C might not be possible if rapid and drastic action isn't taken in the next two decades.
"We have to turn a sharp corner if we want to limit the intergenerational impacts of climate change," said Simon Gosling, another co-author of the study and Professor of Climate Risk at the University of Nottingham. "In this respect, the setting of more ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets at the UN climate conference in Glasgow in November this year is going to be crucial."
Said conference will be vital to establish whether humanity can still hold to the terms of the Paris Climate Agreement.
Global inequities were also starkly reflected in the study's findings. Those born today in Central Asia and Europe will face four times as many extreme weather events, while those born in sub-Saharan Africa will face six times as much.
Such disparities reflect how people who had contributed the least and who had the least say will feel the worst effects of climate change, the study's lead author, Wim Thiery, told the Washington Post.
"Young people are being hit by climate crisis but are not in a position to make decisions," he said. "While the people who can make the change happen will not face the consequences."
The study was published in conjunction with a report from Save the Children International, titled Born Into the Climate Crisis, which calls on global leaders to secure children's right to a stable climate future.
Last year, a U.S. appeals court rejected a lawsuit brought by 21 young American's, who argued that their government's failures to mitigate climate change represented a violation of their rights.
Yolanda Wright, who directs Save the Children's climate efforts, told the Washington Post that she hopes the study's findings can give new ground to similar lawsuits in the future.
"Now that we can really quantify how a child in their lifetime will see so many more of these extreme events...it helps make the case," she said.