The changing climate is bad news for children of the world, says "Born into the Climate Crisis" report
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Today's children more unlucky - will face brutal effects of climate change
- Climate change intensifying: A report "Born into the Climate Crisis" says children born in 2020 will experience more heatwaves, floods, droughts and wildfires across their lifetimes due to climate change, according to a study by non-profit "Save the Children". These children will face on average twice as many wildfires; 2.8 times the exposure to crop failure; 2.6 times as many drought events; 2.8 times as many river floods and 6.8 times more heatwaves across their lifetimes compared to a person born in 1960.
- What can be done: Limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels will reduce the additional lifetime exposure of new-borns to heatwaves by 45%, droughts by 39% and river floods by 38%. Children of many low- and middle-income countries would continue to bear the brunt of worsening climate change. Born into the Climate Crisis report warns why we must act now to secure children’s rights, and calculated the exposure of an average person to climate impacts across their lifetime in 178 countries.
- Technical information: Children born in 2020 in Palestine, Afghanistan and Papua New Guinea face around double the lifetime risk of wildfires compared to the previous generations. The new-borns in Portugal are poised to face 1.8 times the lifetime exposure to wildfire than previous generations
- In Sub-Saharan Africa, new-borns in 2020 will face 2.6 times more crop failures over their lifetimes than a person born in 1960. In South Asia, this rate increases to 3.6 times, and 4.4 times in the Middle East and North Africa.
- In Afghanistan, new-borns will confront 5.3 times more drought in their lifetimes. In Tanzania and Kenya, children will face 2.8 and 4.6 times the exposure to drought, respectively. In the Sahel, where temperatures are rising 1.5 times faster than the global average, agricultural yields are projected to fall by 20 per cent per decade by the end of the 21st century.
- In Western Europe, a new-born is projected to experience roughly similar exposure to droughts compared to the past generations. The lifetime exposure for new-borns rises to 3.8 times that of older generations in sub-Saharan Africa, and 4.5 times in the Middle East and North Africa.
- Children born in 2020 in Europe and central Asia will experience 4.8 times as many heatwaves compared to the previous generation. In most parts of Africa, the new-borns will experience exposure increases reaching as high as 9 times in the Democratic Republic of Congo and 11.6 times in Eritrea. In south and central Asia, exposure rises even further, reaching 15.9 times as many heatwaves as a person born in 1960 in Tajikistan and 18 times as many in Afghanistan.
- Makes sense to act now: The impact of reducing the frequency of extreme weather events through cutting emissions will help keep more children in school, avoid increase in malnutrition and ultimately save the lives of several of the world’s most vulnerable children, the report stated.
- Involve everyone: The report recommends actions including recognising children as equal stakeholders and key agents of change, scaling up social protection systems and taking bolder action to limit warming.
- Summary: The climate crisis is fundamentally and irreparably reshaping the world, with grave implications for the rights of current and future generations of children. When ranked by income, the top 50% of states are responsible for 86% of cumulative global CO2 emissions, while the lower half are responsible for just 14%. Despite this, it is the children of low and middle-income countries that bear the brunt of losses and damage to health and human capital, land, cultural heritage, indigenous and local knowledge, and biodiversity as a result of climate change. Without drastic mitigation action to reduce emissions and limit warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, led by high-income and high-emitting countries and informed by children’s best interests and identified priorities, the children of these low- and middle-income countries will be burdened with the most dangerous impacts of the climate crisis. They have inherited a problem not of their own making.
- EXAM QUESTIONS: (1) Explore the interlinking between climate change and human rights. (2) What five steps today can mitigate the pain of 2050s from the perspective of child rights. Explain.
#childrights #climatechange #wildfires #floods
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