Prioritise children's rights in local climate action

In 2022, I met some flood victims at a camp named Ogenya in Nyando. One was a woman who had released her two teen children to live with her mother in a different county because the camp, and the one-room makeshift shelter she shared with her husband, were unconducive.

She was emaciated, either out of an illness or malnutrition. But even as we spoke, her infant would not stop suckling. Outside, children enjoyed football oblivious of their parents’ trauma and worries. I wondered how bad it could get for children.

As happens with conflict, climate-induced calamities drive children to extremes like displacement and separation from family, which puts them at risk of violence, exploitation or abuse, as they miss out on healthcare, education and family love, sometimes breeding long-lasting psychological trauma.

Add these to the always talked about risks of death from extreme weather, waterborne diseases, food insecurity, snakebites and malnutrition, and it is clear that the climate crisis is a children’s rights snatcher.

“The climate-changed child”, a UNICEF Children’s Climate Risk Index supplement, shows how climate change impacts children’s health and development, including their brains, lungs, immune system, and overall well-being “from conception to adulthood”. No child is safe in the face of climate crisis.

Various child-focused organisations such as Save the Children place the number of minors living in extreme climate high-risk countries at between 710 million and 1 billion, and estimate that in 2020 alone, at least 7 million were displaced by natural disasters. Over half of these children live in Africa.

The organisations say 13 million children in East and Southern Africa are currently out of school due to climate related issues. The World Health Organisation estimates that children aged below five “bear 88 per cent of the global burden of disease linked to climate change” and that “45 per cent of all child deaths are linked to malnutrition”.

These figures qualify climate change as a children’s rights crisis, affecting their survival, protection, health, education and access to food, clean water and sanitation. Children are least responsible for the climate crisis, but are disproportionately affected. Yet only 2.4 per cent of climate finance is directly meant for child-responsive projects, according to UNICEF.

Despite these challenges, unique global and locally-led climate action need be enhanced. This include strengthening climate-resilient health systems, training healthcare workers to respond to health risks during calamities, and ensuring well equipped healthcare facilities and community health promoters. It means promoting climate-smart agriculture for food security and ensuring children’s nutrition by pushing focus on drought-resistant crops, agroforestry, and water conservation.

Children displaced by drought or floods deserve to continue learning. Where climate-resilient school infrastructure lacks, mobile schools can suffice, as is the case in Nigeria, especially in conflict-prone regions.

Governments need to strengthen digital learning platforms for increased remote education. The African Union’s Kampala Convention on Internally Displaced Persons provides for displaced children, and substantial allocations of funds through national budgets, and bilateral collaborations is necessary.

Again, the earlier climate change education is entrenched in curricula, the easier it will be for children to contribute. This will equip them to be agents of change amid the chaos. The climate crisis is a children’s rights crisis.

Children are victims. But there is hope if we become intentional in tackling the problem for current and future generations.

The solutions are within reach, and must focus on children’s rights through climate policies that address specific needs of this demographic, as stated in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

-The writer advocates for climate justice