Is it environmentally unethical for Millennials to have children?

A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published last week, paints a dark picture of the future for our planet. Described as a “code red” warning of the threat of climate change, it outlined urgent reductions of fossil fuel emissions as our only hope for saving the world. Meanwhile, news reports of Italy’s highest ever recorded temperatures and wildfires across Greece hammered the point home.

The mood of impending doom and helplessness that settled across my WhatsApp groups and social media timelines following this report has been coined “eco-anxiety”. Eco-anxiety is not a mental illness in itself but according to the Lancet is associated with symptoms such as panic attacks, insomnia, and obsessive thinking due to deep concern about the planet.

Eco-anxiety is particularly prevalent in young people. A 2020 study by Deloitte found that 48 per cent of Gen Zs and 44 per cent of Millennials said they feel anxious or stressed all or most of the time, with climate change and/or protecting the environment scoring as the most troubling issue. A 2019 Amnesty International Future of Humanity survey of 10,000 young people produced similar results; climate change was the most commonly cited stress factor.

One of the key ways this eco-anxiety manifests itself seems to be in the affronting realisation that the world might no longer be a welcoming environment to bring a child into. The UK government has committed to slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 78 per cent from 1990 levels within 14 years, and to becoming carbon neutral by 2050. A Science Direct study found that “under current conditions in the United States, for example, each child adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average female, which is 5.7 times her lifetime emissions.” Choosing not to reproduce, this would suggest, is far more impactful than taking fewer flights or eating a vegan diet. 

Headlines reading “Want to fight climate change? Have fewer children” and “The environmental ethics of having kids” have been plastered across websites and newspapers, and young people are taking note. A study of more than 600 adults between 27 and 45 found that 96.5 per cent were “very” or “extremely” concerned about the well-being of their existing or future children in a world impacted by the consequences of a climate crisis.

The survey seems to translate into real life too. Years before we would normally expect to begin thinking about having children, many of the twenty-somethings I know have had to think about not having children. After all, if bringing more children into an already densely populated world will speed up the earth’s eventual decline, how cruel to both the children and the planet to do so.

Along with eco-anxiety, confronting this realisation will likely bring further anger and resentment from young people too. Despite being a huge privilege in the first place, it is hard not to feel a sense of injustice that we face a future with restrictions on some of the privileges we have grown up taking for granted; having children, travelling the world and consuming food and fashion as we please.

Some scientists have rebuffed the claim that having children is environmentally unethical. A report by Founders Pledge, an organisation for philanthropists, suggested that these studies fail to take into account the climate pledges much of the world are undertaking. Founders Pledge believes that government initiatives will essentially mitigate the impact of our children and grandchildren due to the downward trend of carbon emissions in rich countries and the seriousness with which governments are beginning to take the issue.

The Founders Pledge report suggests having fewer, or no, children is still an effective way to reduce carbon footprint, but in light of climate pledges, reducing the number of transatlantic flights taken, living car-free or switching to green energy are more effective than originally presumed. 

And yet, in a world brimming with eco-anxiety, the decision not to have children might feel like taking back a little bit of control from what can seem like an uncontrollable situation. For the eco-conscious, trusting in a government that handled the pandemic with such varied success might seem too big a gamble on a crisis so threatening. After all, our own Prime Minister is currently expecting his seventh child.

I am thankful that deciding whether to have children is a decision still a fair few years off for me, and no doubt the climate crisis will only encourage me to put it off further. But there is hope; our future politicians and campaigners will be the same Millennials and Gen-Zs who were willing to sacrifice having children to save the world. These passionate teens and twenty-somethings will make for the kind of dedicated future leaders we desperately need.