Climate Change and Children: A Human Security Challenge

According to this paper, published by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Innocenti Research Centre, children are central to the climate change and human security agenda. They are among the populations that are most vulnerable to climate change and may be the greatest victims of its impacts. At the same time, they are powerful protagonists for change and can contribute significantly to the collective effort to mitigate climate change and its effects. The aim of this paper is to present the evidence and analysis necessary to effectively influence advocacy, policy, and programme development to consider children as key victims as well as important activists in issues related to climate change. The ultimate goal is to provide the opportunity for children and young people to develop to their full potential, both by ensuring that their communities and homes are more capable of withstanding the impacts of climate change and by providing support and encouragement for their participation and contributions to the collective global response.

The review first presents evidence that confirms the centrality of children and their unique vulnerabilities to global, national and sub-national policies and frameworks on climate change and human security. It also identifies a gap in existing agreements, protocols, and policies that have not sufficiently recognised or addressed children's issues in the past. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989, and "A World Fit for Children" (WFFC) protect and preserve the right of every child to a safe, healthy environment in which to develop and grow. The WFFC Declaration, which was a consensus outcome from the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children held in 2002, articulates clearly the commitment of States "to give every assistance to protect children and minimize the impact of natural disasters and environmental degradation on them."

The review makes the point that together with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), these international commitments are of the greatest relevance for addressing the myriad threats that climate change raises for the world's children. 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. It is therefore important not to separate climate change from other priorities, but, rather, to integrate comprehensive actions to include climate risk in development planning, programmes and projects.

However, the strong institutional basis for inclusion of children's issues in the international climate regime has yet to align with an emerging mechanism for championing children's issues in the sector. 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. Similarly, they fail to draw on the practical knowledge, insights, and capacity for meaningful change that children can and do offer - most notably at sub-national and community levels.

In order to ensure that children are central to the response to climate change, the communication-related conclusions emerging from this paper are the following:

• A human rights-based approach necessitates inclusion of children's issues within all international and national efforts to address climate change and its human security aspects. States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child can be urged to integrate practical multisectoral considerations that bring climate change and environmental degradation into sector-wide approaches and poverty reduction strategies.
• All possible opportunities should be taken to integrate the children's agenda into relevant intergovernmental processes. Examples, among many, include the UN General Assembly high-level thematic debate on climate change and the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) event held in April 2008 on "Achieving the MDGs and Coping with the Challenges of Climate Change: A review of commitments and actions by ECOSOC". It is critical to make efforts to bring the children's agenda forward in these and other intergovernmental events related to climate change.
• National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) and other regional and municipal adaptation plans should incorporate a children's dimension. Specifically, it is important that NAPAs and other plans be coordinated with ministries such as education, health, and youth, as well as give special attention to the needs and vulnerabilities of children of different ages. It is crucial for stakeholders to support governments and encourage municipalities and capacity among children to address disaster risk reduction, community risk mapping, and preparedness. Successful integration of planning, training, and drills or simulations that ensure that children and their concerns are taken into account within the child-friendly schools and child-friendly cities frameworks would yield meaningful results within existing programme structures in cities and countries.
• Many opportunities exist for the international community to generate support for community empowerment, shared learning between countries and communities, and field activities designed for results. A platform for shared learning of best practices and lessons learned specific to issues related to intergenerational implications and to the needs and capacities of children can add value to all stakeholders.
• Partnerships are key. United Nations organisations, donors, governments, and civil society can work in cooperation and collaboration to reduce and mitigate risk through environmental education and social and behavioural change. A working example of this is an emerging project under the auspices of article 6 on education and outreach of the UN Convention on Climate Change. This brings together TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), UNICEF, the UN Inter-Agency Committee for the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, government counterparts, and other stakeholders.
• Further approaches to research on climate change and children should be explored. It is vital to understand the importance of the potential role of longitudinal studies, the identification of economic and social indicators and trends, and opportunities to contribute scientific data to future Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other intergovernmental reports. Key questions include: how to bring data specific to vulnerabilities of children and their local environments into studies and reports; how to substantiate the effectiveness of local actions of children (including environmental action and disaster preparedness and response); and how to bring children's perspectives and voices into debates and reports.