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Emerging leaders now in their thirties will face
potentially overwhelming task of steering societies through
increasing effects of climate and nature crises
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They need support to develop skills, understanding and
resilience to tackle multiple crises in a more unstable
world
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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.
That means they must be prepared to find ways to:
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Overcome huge political barriers to the
changes needed to rapidly lower carbon emissions and prevent
further destruction of nature
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Remove increasingly large quantities of carbon
from the atmosphere and restore already damaged domestic and
global ecosystems
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Speed up adaptation to the effects of climate
change, so that societies and the physical infrastructures that
support them can withstand worsening social and environmental
shocks
The report highlights the risk that failure to prevent global
temperatures rising by more than 1.5C significantly increases the
risk that "tipping points” could be triggered - sudden moments of
rapid, irreversible chang with unpredictable consequences for
everyone on the planet.
It calls for governments to take more urgent action now – on a
scale greater than that agreed at the recent COP 26 global
conference – to reduce the burden placed on future leaders.
It also calls for emerging future leaders to be supported to
develop the skills, understanding and resilience to cope with the
burdens they will inherit and the decisions they will face.
Laurie Laybourn-Langton, IPPR associate
fellow and the report’s author, said:
“Every year that current leaders fail to take adequate action
on the climate and nature crisis places a greater burden on those
who will lead us in the future.
“If you’re younger than 40, the global net zero transition
will have to be achieved before you’re due to retire. That’s
already a big enough challenge to pass on to younger generations.
But on the current trajectory, emerging leaders in their early
thirties could also face a chaotic world of extreme weather,
famine, and conflict when they reach positions of political
leadership in the 2040s and 2050s,
“More can and must be done to help future leaders prepare for
the unprecedented challenge of undertaking the transition to more
sustainable societies just when at the impacts of the climate and
nature crisis reach fever pitch. The response of governments to
the Covid-19 pandemic shows how a lack of preparation for crises
can cost societies dearly.”
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
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Cohort 2040 is a newly-launched project to help prepare emerging
leaders of the Millennial generation for the growing climate
crisis they will inherit. It involves a global effort to
understand the challenge they will face, and to build a community
that helps them more effectively to work for a better world as
environmental destabilisation grows. More information on Cohort
2040 at https://www.cohort2040.org/
