Children in Spain will experience two to three times more natural disasters as their grandparents warn experts

Spain's population of children under the age of five - those born from 2020 onwards - are set to suffer double to triple the ravages of extreme weather events as their grandparents, if the country and the world do not urgently take decisive action to curb global warming. As the 21st century progresses, the heatwaves, crop failures, droughts, floods and wildfires they will face will multiply to unprecedented levels, according to research by Save the Children and Vrije Universitet in Brussels, Belgium.

Experts estimate that if the intermediate climate change scenario takes hold - a rise of 2.7C compared to the pre-industrial era (the most likely outcome given the limited emissions reductions agreed so far) - more than 90% of children in the four regions most affected by global warming (Aragon, Catalonia, La Rioja and Valencia) will suffer at least one extreme weather event per year. For the rest, the situation will only be slightly better.

It is estimated that 94% of today's children across Spain will face "unprecedented" exposure to heatwaves, making them almost four times more affected than those born in the 1960s - their grandparents. If the world were to take strong action on CO2 emissions alone, to curb warming to the 1.5C agreed in the Paris Agreement, the number of people affected in the future would fall by 50%. But if the current commitments are not even kept and the temperature rises by 3.5C, the forecast of catastrophes is very alarming.

However, projections up to 2100 under the intermediate scenario indicate that Spain's current population of under-fives will face three times as many droughts as their grandparents, twice as many crop failures and six times as many forest fires in the coming decades. What were exceptional events for those born in the 1960s will be increasingly frequent, intense and long-lasting for their grandchildren.