In July 2023, Earth experienced its highest recorded average daily temperature, and in June the hottest ocean surface temperatures ever recorded for that month. The findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are unequivocal: global warming is human-induced. Adverse climate changes are causing significant damage to ecosystems and people, with the most vulnerable communities, particularly children, disproportionately affected.
The implications for children are especially troubling. They are biologically less equipped to handle weather extremes and more susceptible to pollution-induced toxins. Their vulnerability extends to diseases that climate change could worsen, like Malaria and Dengue. Further, any deprivation they face due to environmental degradation can have lifelong consequences.
Some of the severe effects of climate change are felt in Africa, a continent that has historically contributed minimally to global carbon emissions. Current projections suggest that by 2100 if global warming reaches 3°C, Sub-Saharan Africa could lose up to 8.6% of its GDP annually. Conversely, limiting global warming to 1.5°C would reduce this loss to 3.8% per year.
Using the global Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI), the report Time to Act emphasizes the unique exposure and vulnerability to climate change faced by children living in Africa. Developed by UNICEF, the CCRI considers factors like children’s exposure to hazards and their adaptive capacities, and it measures both children’s immediate susceptibility and long-term resilience. The CCRI incorporates indicators from two pillars. The first one is gauging children’s exposure to environmental hazards and another assessing their vulnerability to such threats.
The report is supported by UNEP and advocates for urgent policy actions that progressively guarantee children’s right to a safe and healthy environment. It underscores the need for focused interventions, highlighting adaptation and resilience strategies and interventions that have proven effective for the well-being of children, their families, and communities.
Further, it emphasizes the inclusion of children in climate resilience planning. The price of an inadequate response to the climate crisis is increasing every day. There is a need for urgent policy actions and focused adaptation and resilience interventions.
The Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI) shows how children in Africa are subject to extraordinarily high levels of exposure and vulnerability to the effects of climate change and environmental degradation. All countries and virtually all children, are affected by substantially heightened risks, albeit with intensity that vary across the continent.
While children and communities in the northern part of Africa tend to be exposed to higher risks related to water scarcity and air pollution, those living in the western and eastern parts of the continent, particularly in the tropical areas – are more heavily affected by the risks posed by vector-borne diseases, heat waves and riverine flooding. Some risks such as tropical cyclones and coastal flooding are higher in specific areas of the continent, while the risk related to soil and water pollution affects children across the continent with no identifiable geographic variation pattern.
When looking at the extent to which the vulnerability of children to climate change is heightened by the inadequate availability of essential services, the CCRI shows how all countries have gaps, with those in the tropical areas of the continent showing the highest gaps resulting in heightened child vulnerability across the four dimensions that are included in the CCRI (health and nutrition, WASH, education and social protection).
A summary of this multifaceted scenario is provided by the overall CCRI scores by country. As many as 39 African countries, out of the 49 for which data is available, post an overall CCRI score that puts them in the ‘extremely high’ or the in the ‘high’ risk class. This finding provides a stark warning and highlights the urgency for the responsible stakeholders to act by prioritizing climate change adaptation and resilience and inclusion policies and programmes across the continent.
Multilateral Climate Funds (MCFs) play a vital role in channeling climate finance from developed to developing nations, including the African continent. Recently released evidence has revealed a major shortcoming in the extent to which international climate finance is responsive to children’s needs. Just 2.4% of MCF funding was found to be allocated to projects that are child-responsive. This is a striking contradiction when considering the heightened exposure and vulnerability of children to climate change, as outlined by the CCRI.
Beyond their higher vulnerability, children and young people are two crucial demographics for the future of any society, while at the same time representing the majority of a country’s population, as is the case in many African countries. Climate finance and action that overlooks the specific exposure and vulnerability of children weakens the efficacy of climate change response measures, and risks contributing to adverse social outcomes, deepening inequalities and political instability.
As the frequency and severity of climate-induced events intensify families, communities and children in Africa, particularly vulnerable children, face a deadly combination of intensified exposure to multiple and increasingly severe shocks. The poorest and most vulnerable families find it increasingly harder to cope with and recover from shocks. Children and their families hit by one crisis may be able to absorb the shock provided the crisis is not too severe.
However, when they are hit by a second, a third and other subsequent shocks within a short period their coping mechanisms can become exhausted. As shown in the CCRI Pillar 2 analysis, in such contexts, a crucial role is played by the ability of affected communities and children to access quality, climate-resilient essential services that can enhance their adaptive capacity, thus decreasing their vulnerability to the effects of climate change.
Starting from a young age, children and young people need ‘adaptive capacity’ to live their lives in a climate-changed world. Education and green skills enhancement are crucial so that children and young people prepare themselves for the future.
The report Time to Act: African Children in the Climate Change Spotlight shows how climate projects often fail to treat children and young people as active stakeholders or agents of change. Investing and involving children and young people is crucial as they are Africa’s greatest natural resource which can be harnessed to close the emissions gap and contribute to the transition to renewable energy. Their involvement is also crucial to ensure that their needs and rights shape accelerated action to tackle climate change.
Finally, the report put the following points as a way out strategies. One is to develop and implement policy frameworks and programmes that increase the coverage, effectiveness and climate resilience of social sector systems, particularly those providing essential services required to decrease the vulnerability of communities and children to climate change, namely water and sanitation, health and nutrition education and social protection is Provide adequate funding for climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Donor countries, in partnership with receiving countries, need to urgently address the child-responsiveness of international climate finance by exponentially scaling up funding to programs that are child and gender-responsive. Developing countries also need to ensure that an increasing part of their domestic resources is invested in climate change adaptation and mitigation that can preserve the future of their children and their nations at large.
In line with the Green Jobs for Youth Pact, develop policies and programs that provide children and young people with climate change education and skills that can be taken into the workplace. This includes strengthening green skills and young people’s knowledge so that more and better sustainable jobs for young people become available.
The participation and agency of children and young people in climate and environmental-related actions must also be reinvigorated. It is important to provide them with the opportunity to act as agents of change so that they can contribute with innovative solutions to tackle climate change, including mitigating its effects.
BY GIRMACHEW GASHAW
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD WEDNESDAY 6 SEPTEMBER 2023
