EDITORIAL: Burning Future

IN a world increasingly shaped by the escalating climate crisis, the most innocent are suffering the most.

A new report by Save the Children and researchers from Vrije Universiteit Brussel starkly outlines the future that awaits our youngest citizens: 83 percent of five-year-olds born in 2020—roughly 100 million children—will face “unprecedented” exposure to extreme heat in their lifetimes.

This is not some distant future conjured by worst-case projections. It is the likely outcome of our current trajectory. If countries stick to existing climate pledges, global temperatures are expected to rise by 2.7°C by the end of the century. In reality, the world is drifting toward an even grimmer future—3.1°C of warming—because those insufficient pledges are not even being met.

The consequences are staggering and cruel. Children, especially the youngest, are most vulnerable to heatwaves, with risks including dehydration, respiratory illnesses, and in many cases, death.

When heat closes schools—as it did in South Sudan—or forces families from their homes, as happened to Denise in Brazil and Haruka in cyclone-ravaged Vanuatu, it disrupts education, endangers mental health, and permanently alters the trajectory of young lives.

These are not isolated stories; they are increasingly common childhoods shaped by global inaction.

What’s most tragic is that much of this suffering is preventable. If the world keeps warming below the 1.5°C limit set by the Paris Agreement, 38 million of these five-year-olds—nearly a third—would be spared the worst of the heat.

Five million could avoid the devastation of lifetime exposure to tropical cyclones. Millions more would be protected from floods, droughts, wildfires, and failed crops.

The science is clear, the solutions exist, and the moral imperative is overwhelming. Yet governments continue to stall. Fossil fuel expansion continues. Policy loopholes persist. And amid the daily disasters, the world’s children cry out to be heard—and are ignored.

As Save the Children’s CEO Inger Ashing put it: “Children plead with us not to switch off.” And yet we do—every time climate promises are broken, every time emissions rise, every time leaders put short-term gains ahead of long-term survival.

This is not just a climate crisis; it is a betrayal of the next generation. We can—and must—change course. The price of inaction is written in the sweltering classrooms, the flooded homes, the shattered dreams of children who did nothing to cause this crisis.

The world’s children are bearing the brunt of our failures. It’s time we bore the weight of responsibility.

Will we act before it’s too late?