A study from Vrije Universiteit Brussel has found that young Europeans will experience years of dangerous fire weather over their lifetime as climate warms, but rapid emissions cuts could substantially reduce their exposure.
VUB study shows young Europeans will experience years of dangerous fire weather over their lifetime as climate warms, but rapid emissions cuts could substantially reduce their exposure.
A child born in Europe in 2025 will live through more than three additional years of extreme fire weather compared with someone born in 1950 if we continue with current climate policies, according to new research published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. That’s an 84% increase for today’s babies when compared to their grandparents. The vast majority (86%) of this increase is due to climate change rather than increased longevity.
The largest increases are projected in the Mediterranean
In this region, already hard-hit by wildfires, people born in 2025 are projected to face up to 2.5 times the exposure to extreme fire weather of those born in 1950, corresponding to over five additional years of extreme fire weather over their lifetime. That’s for a scenario where climate change reaches 2.6°C by 2100, as predicted based on current climate policies.
Rapidly cutting the use of fossil fuels would reduce exposure to dangerous fire weather in all regions, decreasing lifetime exposure for those born in 2025 by 1.3 years on average in Europe, and more than 2 years for the most affected regions in Southern Europe.
Fire weather is already a rapidly growing problem in Europe
In 2025, fires burned through the largest area ever recorded in Europe (over 1 million hectares), with Spain and Portugal worst affected.
This year, fires have already had devastating impacts in France, Spain and Belgium, driven in large part by repeated heatwaves since the beginning of the summer which studies show would have been virtually impossible without climate change.
Portugal is the European country which has seen the highest proportion of its area burned in recent decades
In 2020, after living through devastating wildfires and intense heatwaves, six Portuguese youth filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights against European countries for failing to take sufficient action on climate change. This study finds that:
- Extreme fire weather days in Portugal are projected to more than double, from 14 days per year in 1950-1970 to 32 days per year by 2100 under current climate policies.
- A child born in Portugal in 2025 is projected to spend about 6.5 years of their life under extreme fire weather conditions under current climate policies.
- In the most exposed regions of northeastern Portugal, children born in 2025 will be exposed to up to 2.5 times as much extreme fire weather as people born in 1950 under current climate policies.
- Each additional degree of global warming by the end of the century adds around 272 days of extreme fire weather to the life of a Portuguese child born in 2025.
- Limiting warming to 1.5°C, in line with the Paris Agreement, would substantially reduce lifetime exposure for young people across Europe, cutting it by more than a year for children born in Portugal in 2025, compared with current policies.
Other European countries are also projected to witness high increases in lifetime exposure. Every additional degree of warming adds hundreds of days of extreme fire weather to the lifetime of people born in 2025, as shown in the table below:
| European Countries & Regions | Number of years people born in 1950 are projected to be exposed to extreme fire weather during their lifetime under current policies (2.6°C)* | Number of years people born in 2025 projected to be exposed to extreme fire weather during their lifetime under a pathway in line with the Paris Agreement (1.5°C)* | Number of years people born in 2025 are projected to be exposed to extreme fire weather during their lifetime under current climate policies (2.6°C)* | Additional days of exposure to extreme fire weather during the lifetime of people born in 2025 per additional degree of end-of-century global warming (days/°C/lifetime)* |
| Greece | 3.4 | 5.9 | 7.2 | 473 |
| Spain | 3.5 | 6 | 7.3 | 448 |
| Italy | 3.6 | 6.4 | 7.7 | 448 |
| Western Türkiye | 3.3 | 5.9 | 7.1 | 435 |
| Belgium | 3.9 | 5.9 | 7.3 | 432 |
| France | 3.7 | 6.2 | 7.5 | 431 |
| Germany | 3.8 | 5.4 | 6.4 | 338 |
| UK | 3.7 | 5.1 | 6.3 | 312 |
| Portugal | 3.4 | 5.7 | 6.5 | 272 |
| Denmark | 3.5 | 4.5 | 5.5 | 264 |
| Poland | 3.6 | 5.2 | 6.1 | 258 |
| Sweden | 3.6 | 4.6 | 5.3 | 236 |
| Norway | 3.6 | 4.4 | 4.9 | 179 |
*Extreme fire weather is defined here as days when the fire weather index (FWI) exceeds the top 5% of days for that country over 1985-2014. For a comparison of fire weather across all countries using the absolute magnitude thresholds (as used by the European Forest Fire Information System, EFFIS), please see the Appendix material available here.
Fire weather refers to the hot, dry and windy conditions that make fires more likely to ignite, spread faster, and become harder to suppress. Climate change, driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, is making these conditions more frequent and severe – pushing fire risk into seasons and regions rarely exposed before, and threatening lives, homes and nature.
The study highlights a growing intergenerational injustice
Young people, who have contributed least to historical greenhouse gas emissions, are set to bear a disproportionate share of future fire hazard, while also being asked to shoulder much of the responsibility for cutting emissions. The faster we cut emissions now, the smaller the hazard faced by the youngest generations. Rosa Pietroiusti, lead author of the study and PhD researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), said:
“Our results show that the level of fire hazard that will be faced by today’s children across their life is fundamentally different from what their grandparents experienced. A child born in Europe now will spend years more of their life under extreme fire weather conditions, and across the Mediterranean that burden is especially heavy. Young people have done the least to cause climate change, yet they will live with its consequences for the longest. This is why youth-led climate justice movements and legal initiatives are demanding more ambitious climate action from governments and companies now, so that the worst impacts of future climate-related hazards in their future can be avoided.”
Wim Thiery, senior author of the study and Professor at VUB, said:
“The hopeful part of our findings is that this future is not yet fixed: ambitious reductions in greenhouse gas emissions now can significantly reduce the risk of wildfires and protect our children from the worst. With the falling costs of solar and wind, rapid cuts to fossil fuel use are absolutely feasible. Every fraction of a degree of warming we avoid translates directly into less fire weather over a child’s lifetime, giving them a chance at a full and healthier life, an education – that’s fewer lives cut cruelly short, fewer homes and dreams burned by the flames, and fewer people traumatised by injury and grief. Cutting fossil fuel emissions in line with the Paris Agreement — alongside investment in fire prevention, preparedness and more resilient landscapes — is essential to protect young Europeans from a future of relentless and potentially lethal fire seasons.”
