LocationsGlobal television audiences who tune in for their local weather reports today are in for a surprise. Instead of your regular meteorologists, reports will be anchored by children and set in the year 2050.
Will UNDP's disturbing weather forecast come true?
March 25, 2024
While 2050 still seems far away, the forecast based on the data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is unsettling. The rising temperatures will continue to bring more of the catastrophic climate change impacts. Heat waves will affect 94% percent of children. Extreme droughts will threaten global food security while disasters will cost taxpayers almost 6 trillion dollars. “Everything is crazy. If we don’t listen to scientists, things are going to be even crazier when I grow up,” announces a young presenter.
There's still hope for clearer skies. The #WeatherKids, an initiative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), calls you to act on behalf of the next generation.
To create a greener and safer future, go online to sign a climate pledge on behalf of the kids in your lives. Once you sign that pledge and input the name of the child, the UNDP’s website will show you what the 2050 forecast could look like in their corner of the globe.
Their days are generally sunny – the best possible outcome. The solar energy is harnessed to power houses and offices all around, too. But the world's leading scientists, alongside the #WeatherKids, are warning what could happen by 2050 if we don’t make major changes.
“The #WeatherKids add a powerful voice to alert us to a future that will certainly materialize if we do not take meaningful climate action today,” said Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator. “Continued inertia on climate change will lead to an increasingly uninhabitable planet for the ‘kids of today’ and future generations. We can only course-correct if we move at speed and scale now. That includes decarbonizing our economies and advancing access to affordable, clean energy for all; protecting and restoring our natural world; and empowering communities to have their say in their countries’ climate pledges.”
The #WeatherKids campaign is part of UNDP’s efforts to inspire public conversation and mobilize action on climate change on the road to the COP30 climate negotiations to be held in Brazil 2025. COP30 will mark the ten-year anniversary of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and is a critical opportunity to get the world on a path aligned with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as countries submit a new round of climate actions and goals they plan to undertake. These plans – known as ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDCs) - are at the very heart of the global fight against climate change.
The #Weather Kids is underpinned by UNDP’s extensive work on climate change and climate action. The newly established UNDP Climate Hub delivers the UN System’s largest portfolio of support on climate action in nearly 150 countries. UNDP’s flagship Climate Promise initiative has supported action to tackle global warming by working with 85% of the world’s developing countries on their NDC submissions.
The #WeatherKids initiative has been created in partnership with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and The Weather Channel. Supported by global celebrities and UNDP Goodwill Ambassadors, including Oscar-winning Malaysian actor Michelle Yeoh, American actor Connie Britton and Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the campaign is part of UNDP’s efforts to boost awareness on the impacts of climate change and to mobilize people around the world to take meaningful climate action for future generations.
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