Scary weather forecast for Aussie kids

More droughts, more bushfires, and a lot more heat: Aussie kids born now are going to be exposed to a lot more extreme weather.

Australian children born in 2020 will experience four times as many heatwaves, three times as many droughts, and far more bushfires and floods as those born in 1960, new international research has found.

The children of 2020 born in other countries will face even tougher climate challenges, the report to be published on Monday in the journal science revealed – and that’s just under a scenario of a world that’s warmer by 1.5 degrees.

The most recent UN climate report found the planet had already heated up by just over one degree, but forecasts of future warming vary. Many think the opportunity to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees is fading.

Ella Simon, 15, who has helped organise some of the School Strike for Climate protects in Australia in recent years, said many older people still didn’t grasp the urgency of climate change, or the anxiety burden it placed on young people.

“This isn’t some far-off issue that’s going to happen; it’s happening now,” Ella said.

“This is putting everyone at risk.”

The School Strike For Climate movement has not been without its critics, with some leaders declaring kids should be prioritising their education, but Ella said the strikes gave the attendees a sense of power and hope.

“We have to use our voice in any way we can because we can’t vote yet,” she said.

“People don’t listen to us in the same way that they listen to adults or politicians. So young people have to find other ways to do this.”

The Melbourne school student will this week be representing Australia as the youngest delegate – she turned 15 on Sunday – at an international youth environment forum in Milan, ahead of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow.

Ella said she was looking forward to meeting other delegates and hearing about the different ways climate change was affecting people around the world.

“I want to see our leaders being called out,” she said

“I want to see them acknowledge the fact that they haven’t done anything, and that Australia is the second worst country on the list of taking action on the climate crisis. I want to see them take in what us young people put forward in Milan.”

The modelling of future extreme climate events was conducted by the University of Brussels, in conjunction with Save the Children.

It reveals just how bad things could get in some parts of the globe as extreme events become more frequent. Children born in some parts of the Middle East in 2020 will live through ten times the number of heatwaves as those born in 1960; kids born in some parts of Africa will be exposed to 15 times the number of droughts.

Report author Erin Ryan said children born today “are poised to flee more fires, and face food shortages, floods and rolling, relentless heatwaves around the world”.

“The life and prospects of a child born today look dramatically, irreversibly different to their parents and grandparents,” she said. “This is a child rights emergency of the highest order.”

In the course of their lifetime, Aussie children born in 2020 will likely be exposed to 30 per cent more bushfires, 40 per cent more floods, three times more droughts and four times more heatwaves that Aussie children born in 1960, Ms Ryan said.

Originally published as Scary weather forecast for Aussie kids