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No child’s play: what climate change will inflict on today’s newborns

Babies born in 2020 will face many more extreme events, such as heat waves, than will people born several generations earlier.
A young boy plays in a public pool during an unprecedented heat wave in Portland, Oregon, U.S. June 27, 2021.

Over the course of their lifetimes, babies born in 2020 will experience an average of 30 heatwaves — and that figure assumes governments cooperate to hold warming in check. Credit: Maranie Staab/Reuters/Alamy

If countries follow current climate pledges, babies born in 2020 could face, on average, seven times more heatwaves over the course of their lives than will those born in 19601.

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Nature 598, 10 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02586-4

References

  1. Thiery, W. et al. Science https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abi7339 (2021).

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