Emerging leaders now in their thirties will face potentially overwhelming task of steering societies through increasing effects of climate and nature crises
They need support to develop skills, understanding and resilience to tackle multiple crises in a more unstable world
Today’s governments must take faster action on emissions to reduce the burden for those who follow them, IPPR urges
Future leaders in the UK and abroad need help to prepare for the unprecedented "crunch point” they are likely to face because of worsening climate change and the consequences of biodiversity loss, a new IPPR report has warned.
Members of the millennial generation - the cohort likely to reach positions of political power in the 2040s and 2050s - will face a growing challenge from more frequent and severe natural crises and their knock-on consequences. These are likely to include extreme storms, dangerously high temperatures, famine and conflict, the report says.
Even if the world succeeds in limiting global temperature increases to 1.5C - still the official target of international climate efforts – climate change and biodiversity loss will have increasingly severe impacts on people and societies everywhere.
But if current governments fail to deliver the changes needed to hit that target, as seems increasingly likely, the challenge for those in power after 2040 will be even more daunting, the report says. Larger and ever more frequent emergencies caused by climate change will become steadily more costly and may distract future leaders from task of tackling the underlying problem.
The result may be a dangerous “crunch point” of “cascading consequences” in which governments are overwhelmed and societies everywhere are destabilised, the report warns. The global destabilisation brought by the Covid-19 pandemic provides a warning of what could be in store.
Many likely leaders of the UK and the world are now in their early thirties – around half the average age of those who currently lead us. The IPPR report warns that, even on the most optimistic scenario, future leaders will inherit increasingly severe versions of the problems that current governments already face, including challenges to food security and economic stability, and growing risk of poverty and conflict.
Access the report here
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Posted On: 19/01/2022