A CLIMATE CHANGE STRATEGY FOR YOUNG CHILDREN
Background
The international community is currently engaged in negotiations on climate change. These negotiations are expected to result in an agreed outcome on global action to address climate change for the period up to 2017, or possibly the period up to 2020. This agreed outcome is expected to be commensurate with the scale of the threats from climate change that have been identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).
Rationale for CG Participation in Climate Change Discussions
The rationale for CG participation in climate change negotiations comes from the fact that the IPCC has identified children as being among the most vulnerable to climate change.
The Summary for Policy Makers of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report states that “some people (such as the poor, young children, and the elderly) can be particularly at risk” from climate change (1)
The Summary for Policy Makers from the IPCCs Working Group II is even more specific and states that “Projected climate change-related exposures are likely to affect the health status of millions of people, particularly those with low adaptive capacity, through:increases in malnutrition and consequent disorders, with implications for child growth and development;” (2).
The negative consequences of malnutrition and the general retardation of child growth and development on children’s life chances do not have to be elaborated in this forum. In addition, children are also very vulnerable to many of the other projected impacts of climate change, including increased extreme events, which may result in natural disasters and emergencies.
Given the CGs focus on ECCD, these potential negative consequences for child growth referenced by the IPCC relate directly to the mandate of the CG and all agencies working in child development.
Objectives
The main objectives of a strategy are to ensure that the climate change framework outcomes are sufficiently ambitious to avoid the most significant impacts on children identified by the IPCC; and provide opportunities within the frameworks that are initiated to adequately address programming for children at the global, national, regional and community levels.
The issue here is to ensure that programming for children is listed in the final text as one of the approved actions that can be undertaken under the programming frameworks that form part of the Copenhagen outcome. Such listing will enable agencies programming in climate change to access funding and other support for actions related to child development (e.g. strengthening of children’s nutritional status in countries whose food security is threatened), from the funding and support that will be made available for climate change programming.
The global outcome document is being negotiated under six “building blocks”, viz:
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Shared Vision – which sets out the aspirational goals for addressing climate change in a cooperative manner at the global level;
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Mitigation – which addresses reductions and long term stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions;
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Adaptation – which deals with strengthening countries’ abilities to minimize the negative impacts of climate change;
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Finance – where provision of financial support to developing countries to combat climate change is the main focus;
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Technology – which deals with access to technologies for mitigation and adaptation;
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Capacity Building – which addresses the development of human, technical and institutional capacities to address climate change.
The main building blocks where programming for children will fit naturally is in the “shared vision”, or in the “adaptation” sections.
The key issue is to ensure that programming for children is listed in the final text as one of the approved actions that can be undertaken under the programming frameworks that form part of final outcome document. Such listing will enable agencies programming in climate change to access funding and other support for actions related to child development (e.g. strengthening of children’s nutritional status in countries whose food security is threatened), from the funding and support that will be made available for climate change programming.
Current and ongoing activities:
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Updating and rethinking of 2009 CG strategy paper based on climate change negotiations in 2010
- evelopment of a background paper: defining and elaborating on climate change programming through examples/evidence to support the potential of climate change programming in early childhood addressing both the causes (mitigation action) and the impacts (vulnerability and adaptation) for programming in early childhood
- Identification of key messages summarising the impacts/issues and what is needed for ACTION and how action can be undertaken in a very practical way by State Parties - for inclusion in the final outcome document
- Where relevant, ongoing presence at key climate change negotiation meetings
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Looking ahead to having a presence at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development 2012: Rio Plus 20
1. IPCC Synthesis Report Summary for Policy Makers, Pg. 11
2. IPCC WG2 Summary for Policy Makers, Pg. 8
