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Despite being exposed to life-threatening hazards, children are consistently overlooked in climate crisis response planning, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Catherine M Russell said on Tuesday.
The statement on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 Report also urged that it is past time to put children at the centre of climate action.
“The evidence is irrefutable – the climate crisis is a children’s crisis. And yet, children are consistently overlooked in climate crisis response planning,” she said in the statement.
“The climate crisis is not a future threat,” the statement added, referring to the IPCC report findings. It also warned that the crisis will continue to accelerate and affect the world in “increasingly devastating ways.”
“Already, the climate crisis has exposed nearly every child, on every continent, to greater risk of more frequent, intense, and destructive climate hazards,” the statement added.
“But for some children, the climate crisis is more than a heightened risk. It is a life-threatening reality.”
The statement mentioned the Children’s Climate Risk Index, the first comprehensive analysis of climate and environmental risk from a child’s perspective.
Released by UNICEF, the index showed that 1 billion children live in extremely high-risk countries where they are exposed to the most severe hazards, shocks, and stressors.
“Today, 1 billion of the world’s most vulnerable children are at risk. Tomorrow, if the world fails to act, it will be all children,” the statement read.
However, the statement claimed that investing in the needs of children most impacted by climate change is not a priority for many countries, and in many cases, it is not even on the agenda.
Many countries either entirely lack adaptation plans, or have plans that do not protect or address their specific and urgent needs, it stated.
In the statement, UNICEF called on all the countries to commit to ensuring that child-centred adaptation becomes a centrepiece of all climate plans and be given the highest priority.
“It is time to put our children at the centre of climate action,” Russel urged, calling for effective measures and solutions.
“First and always, governments need to deliver on ambitious emissions reductions. This remains the only long-term solution,” she said.
The statement mentioned climate-resilient development as a potent measure to protect vulnerable children’s lives and family livelihoods, and that the measures should be multi-sectoral.
“Young people have already waited too long for leaders to take the deep, drastic actions needed to limit the climate crisis. Let’s not keep them waiting for us to take the smart, strategic actions that will help them survive it,” the statement concluded.
