With every child on every continent facing more frequent, severe, and destructive climate hazards, the UNICEF has called on to PROTECT the health, safety, learning and opportunities of every child, PREPARE children to live in a climate-changed world and to PRIORITIZE children and young people in climate funding and resources.
In its “call to action; ‘Protect, Prepare, Prioritize”, the UNICEF said that the impact of climate changeon children would be intense in the coming years.
“Children are already uniquely vulnerable to death and damage from climate change – they are less able to survive extreme weather, are more susceptible to toxic chemicals,
temperature changes and diseases. If they survive, this harm lasts a lifetime and perpetuates and deepens inequality and poverty for generations,” the report said.
CLIMTE CHANGE; PROTECT EVERY CHILD
- To protect the health, safety, learning and opportunities of every child, the UNICEf in the global action calls on the governments to;
- Ensure WASH, Health, Education, Nutrition, Social Policy and Child Protection services are
- climate-sensitive.
- Water and sanitation services should be climate resilient to ensure the sustainable access to safe drinking water for all children over time
- Health systems should be adapted so that they are climate-smart and resilient to environmental shocks and hazards;
- Ensure climate policies and plans are child-sensitive.
CLIMATE CHANGE; PREPARE EVERY CHILD
To prepare every child to live in climate-changed world, their ‘adaptive capacity’ must be improved, their voices heard and acted on, and their education and skills enhanced so they can participate in creating a sustainable future. Countries must provide;
- Climate Change Education (CCE)
- Green Skills
- Disaster risk reduction education
- Participate and consultation on climate adaptation and mitigation policymaking
PRIORITIZE CHILDREN IN CLIMATE FUNDING AND RESOURCES:
The Countries must;
- Leverage and increase access to all available traditional, innovative and alternative climate and risk-reduction finance mechanisms
- Conduct analysis to identify urgent funding gaps and the costs of not investing assessments to determine where the initial cost of investment is outweighed by longer term benefits to children
- Invest in climate monitoring and forecasting systems
