How can the international community better incorporate the needs of children into its climate change and human security policies? This report contends that while children have a unique vulnerability to the effects of climate change, many of the mechanisms currently being used to address this phenomenon fail to take their needs into consideration. It recommends that children’s issues be made central to the international human security agenda and that children themselves be given a larger role to play in influencing and creating policy to address climate change.
Children may be the greatest victims of climate change impacts. Protecting the environment and providing for the health, education and development of children are mutually inclusive goals. Almost any action taken to enhance environmental quality also helps meet the basic needs of children. Yet, while numerous international conventions and declarations have officially recognised the myriad threats that climate change raises for the world’s children, policy and practice continue to lag behind these commitments.
Given the unique vulnerability of children, it is important not to separate climate change from other priorities, but rather to integrate responses to climate risk in development planning, programmes and projects. A review of climate change and human security policy suggests:
- There is an increasingly convincing body of evidence that many of the main killers of children (malaria, diarrhoea and under-nutrition) are highly sensitive to climatic conditions.
- The challenges of providing access to clean household energy, water, sanitation and education, are compounded by the increasing and chronic prevalence and severity of natural disasters.
- The strong institutional basis for inclusion of children’s issues in the international climate regime has yet to align with policy mechanisms. For example, National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) and other adaptation plans rarely, if ever, reference the unique vulnerabilities of children or address their needs.
- Intersectoral coordination and collaboration between line ministries (including Education, Health, Environment, Youth and Finance) are essential for paying special attention to the needs and vulnerabilities of children of different ages.
Empowered children are dynamic and ultimately powerful protagonists for protecting and improving the environment. Today’s children and future generations bear the brunt of the climate change impacts, but they are also great forces for change. As such, they have a right to be involved not only locally, but also in the current international negotiation process. Some recommendations for improving the ways in which climate change and human security policy affect children include:
- Include children’s issues in all international and national efforts, most notably the climate change regime following the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, NAPAs and poverty reduction strategies.
- Scale up efforts to meet the MDGs in order to reduce risk caused by many of the social and economic factors that are shown to exacerbate and increase the impacts of climate change.
- Adopt gender-sensitive participatory approaches to community development, including water and energy stewardship, food security and disaster risk-reduction activities. It is important to create economic opportunity, reduce vulnerability and empower the most marginalised citizens to take part in creating a sustainable society.
- Develop coherent, cooperative partnership between governments, civil society, UN organisations, donors, the private sector and individuals.
