by: Relief Web
Immediate action needs to be taken to fulfill children’s inalienable right to a healthy environment. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) urges governments, donors, development partners and the private sector to take the following actions:
- Protect the lives, health and well-being of children and the resilience of their communities by adapting essential social services to a changing climate, more frequent disasters and a degrading environment. Empower every child through their life course with the developmental opportunities, education and skills to be a champion for the environment. Encourage and facilitate child and youth active participation in climate action and decision-making processes.
- Ensure that climate-related policies are child-sensitive and conduct targeted research on the specific effects of climate change on children
The world has already warmed by 1.2° Celsius (C) compared to pre-industrial levels and greenhouse gas emissions are at record levels and still climbing. On our current trajectory, the increase in global average temperature will rise to 2.7°C by the end of the century in contrast to the Paris Agreement on climate change which aims to limit the long-term temperature increase to no more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Climate change impacts in the MENA region will inevitably increase as the capacity of human and natural systems to adapt fails to keep pace.i
Key messages contained in this report include:
- Children across the MENA region are affected by extreme weather events including, droughts and floods that result in displacement, food scarcity and a myriad of challenges facing their families.
- In the MENA region, climate change is raising temperatures at a faster rate than the global average.
- More than 82 million children in MENA face either high or extremely high climate risks (UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Index)
- Climate change will result in increased heatwaves, water, vector-borne and other infectious disease morbidity and mortality, water stress, and air and water pollution.
- Children are more vulnerable than adults to climate events, both physiologically and psychologically.
- Migrant and displaced children are at heightened risks of dropping-out of school, exploitation, child trafficking and abuse.
- Engaging and empowering children in climate action is their right, and improves sustainability and effectiveness of climate action.
Achieving long-term, regional success for children requires coherent climate policy and action across the region. It is not too late to intervene. Iterative and ‘no regrets’ risk-informed approaches are needed to address emerging and novel risks, the scope and scale of which are unprecedented in human history.
Establishing child-critical services and systems (health, education, child protection and social protection) that are shock-resistant and inclusive will be critical. Effective early warning systems coupled with multisectoral disaster preparedness actions will help ensure effective response to climate shocks. Finally—and crucially— children and youth must be empowered to contribute to the solutions that will help them survive and thrive. Children and youth account for nearly half of MENA’s population,ii with adolescents making up 26 per cent of the population.
Children have the right to inherit a world that they can prosper in. The climate crisis is an existential threat that we pass to the children of today (and future generations) – who have made the least contribution to the climate crisis, and often have the least say in how it is mitigated and managed.
