Climate change solutions should include children - Save the Children

The United Kingdom based Save the children has recommended in its latest report, "FEELING THE HEAT - CHILD SURVIVAL IN A CHANGING CLIMATE", that policies on the adaptation to climate change should involve children as they have the right to participate in decisions that affect their lives, and as such, adaptation planning, particularly National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs), must involve children in identifying appropriate interventions, writes Simba Nembaware.

The reports says climate change is the biggest global health threat to children in the 21st century and notes that without concerted action, millions of children will be at increased risk from disease, undernutrition, water scarcity, disasters, and the collapse of public services and infrastructure. While "no one will be immune to the effects of climate change" Save the Children highlights that children under the age of five are largest group to be most affected.

In the forewood of the report Ulla Tørnæs, the Danish government's Minister for Development Cooperation said, "Children are not responsible for climate change. But they may ultimately be the ones suffering the most and in risk of not surviving. I urge all governments to recognise what is at stake for the children of the world and join the Danish government in protecting the children’s chances of survival in spite of climate change. I hope and trust that in Copenhagen in December 2009 we will agree to an ambitious climate agreement with a strong development focus. Now, more than ever before, the decisions we make today will affect the generations of tomorrow."

The direct effects of climate change on children include diarrhoea and water-borne diseases, malaria and other vector-borne diseases, hunger and malnutrition, increasing frequency of disasters, while the indirect effects are weakened health systems, fragile livelihoods, increased migration and displacement, impact on urbanisation, and additional burdens on women.

The report further reveals that most child deaths occur in the world’s poorest countries and communities with these children dying from a small number of preventable and treatable diseases and conditions, including diarrhoea, malaria and malnutrition. "An estimated third of the entire global childhood disease burden is attributable to changeable factors in food, soil, water and air. These diseases and conditions are predicted to worsen with climate change," and the spread of malaria in various parts of the world will be accelarated by climate change.

With access to clean water becoming more difficult in most parts of the globe, Save the Children says, it will therefore be harder to tackle diarrhoea, one of the biggest killers of young children. Dirty water and unsafe sanitation is a major secondary cause of child mortality.

According to the report, "climate change will increase the number of disasters like floods, droughts and cyclones that put children’s lives at risk. And it will have very severe consequences for food security and nutrition. One-third of deaths of children under five are linked to undernutrition. Climate change will make it much harder for poor families to give their children a nutritious diet."