By 2050, all children should be exposed to high frequency heat waves

By 2050, every child in the world should be exposed to high frequencies of heat waves. The more than 2 billion that will exist that year will suffer from the constancy of the extreme event even in the best possible climate scenario, that is, if the planet manages to come close to fulfilling the agreed commitments, which, at the moment, seems unlikely to happen.

This is what Unicef ​​(United Nations Children’s Fund) points out, which last Wednesday (26th) published a report on the situation of children (under 18) as a result of the climate crisis. With the title “The coldest year of the rest of our lives”, the entity estimates that, currently, about 559 million children in the world are already exposed to a high frequency of heat waves – which is characterized by 4.5 or more records of that extreme event.

It is estimated that by 2020, 1 in 4 children will experience a high frequency of hot flashes. In the same year, the Americas and Europe recorded the highest percentages of children exposed to a high frequency of hot flashes, while Asia had the highest absolute number.

According to UNICEF, mitigation and adaptation measures are urgent.

Children, especially the youngest, are among the groups most vulnerable to the climate crisis. Little ones have a harder time regulating their body temperature. This is without considering the impacts of high temperatures on children’s mental and emotional health.

“The world urgently needs to invest in building resilience and adapting all the systems that children depend on to meet the challenges of rapid climate change,” says Catherine Russell, UNICEF Executive Director.

According to the report, children in the northernmost areas of the planet will be the ones who will face the most dramatic situation in the increasing severity of heat waves. The researchers estimate that by 2050, about half of all children in Africa and Asia will be exposed to continuously extreme temperatures — according to UNICEF, when 83 or more days a year are more than 35°C.

Currently, 1 in 3 children in the world live in countries with about 83 days or more per year of temperature above 35°C. Exposure to extremely high temperatures already affects areas of the Middle East, North and Central Africa, South Asia and parts of Latin America and Australia, which makes basic daily routines difficult and leads children to situations of illness and death.

The regions that, in 2020, had the highest exposures of children to extremely high temperatures are Africa and Asia, which is expected to continue until 2050.

The document points out that, worldwide, heat waves kill about half a million people a year. Among the health risks associated with rising temperatures are allergies, heat stroke and heat stress, higher levels of asthma and risk of chronic respiratory conditions, increased cardiovascular disease, risk of mosquito-borne diseases, low birth weight, malnutrition and diarrhea.

The report says that in regions that are already customarily hot, temperatures can quickly reach lethal levels. The authors give as an example India and Pakistan, where, in March of this year, temperatures above 40°C were recorded, which led to deaths, power outages, fires and crop losses.

Brazil is also cited for, in August 2021, having recorded extremely high temperatures for several days, as in Mato Grosso, which reached 41°C.

The Paris Agreement, to which Brazil is a party, requires countries to reduce their emissions to, preferably, contain the increase in average global temperature by up to 1.5°C.