Much as generational politics are often reactionary, climate change asks us to re-examine the case for the political cleavage of age. Many communities – particularly in the Global South – are already facing its devastating impacts, there’s no denying that global heating will materially effect under-40s on a different scale to our elders. While there is likely less of a generational gap in popular opinion than often stated, across the world 69 per cent of 14 to 19-year-olds recognize the climate emergency, compared to 58 per cent of over 60s.1
Younger generations are worried for good reason. Ahead of COP27 last autumn, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research director Johan Rockström warned that the world is coming ‘very, very close to irreversible changes … time is really running Earlier in 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that around 3.3 to 3.6 billion people ‘live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change’. Although we are seeing many impacts already, the IPCC emphasized that particularly after 2040, ‘climate change will lead to numerous risks to natural and human systems’. Moreover, there is a strong likelihood that ‘multiple climatic and non-climatic risks will interact, resulting in compounding overall risk and risks cascading across sectors and regions’.
