Our youngest children: the missing piece of the climate puzzle
“The president of COP27 should elevate the topic of early childhood development as a fundamental piece of the climate resilience & adaptation puzzle.”
Idea in Brief
We know what we must do to mitigate climate change and ensure a future for our children on a safer, healthier, and biodiverse planet. But at this point, mitigation is not enough.
Children’s resilience will be as important as the resilience of our physical infrastructure in confronting the climate crisis.
To help young children to develop resilience to climate impacts, particularly in the world’s most vulnerable countries like Egypt, we must prioritize investments in child-focused human development.
Shutterstock: Moatassem
by Adrián Cerezo
Parents and caregivers around the globe are deeply concerned about how climate change will affect children. This month, Egypt will host the 27th United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change, or COP27, an occasion to focus the world’s attention on the risks and catastrophic impacts of climate change, as well as potential solutions. Given what is at stake for young children, it is astonishing that the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) process has historically ignored their unique vulnerabilities and, more importantly, the enormous value of supporting the well-being and resilience of the world’s 678 million children under age 5.
Ahead of COP27, Capita partnered with YouGov, an international research data firm, to better understand what Egyptians, specifically Egyptian parents, think about the impacts of climate change on young children. An overwhelming majority (88%) of Egyptian adults who have at least one child younger than 18 are concerned that climate change will affect the health and well-being of children in the next five years.
Climate change is increasingly reflected in emergencies, disasters, loss, and damage. From extreme heat and food insecurity (a risk multiplied by the invasion of Ukraine) to the impact of rising sea levels on the Nile delta, Egypt is one of many countries that are especially vulnerable to the impacts of a changing climate. With a median age of just 24, it is a young country with many people eager to find work and start families, but their prospects–and those of the Egypt’s future generations–will be limited by climate change.
We know what we must do to mitigate climate change and ensure a future for our children on a safer, healthier, and biodiverse planet. But at this point, mitigation is not enough. Given the dangerous changes already being experienced throughout the world, we must also invest in adaptation (and increasingly in addressing loss and damage), centering the needs of children and their families, especially in climate-vulnerable countries such as Egypt.
“Put another way, children’s resilience will be as important as the resilience of our physical infrastructure in confronting the climate crisis.”
To help them to develop resilience to these events, we must prioritize investments in child-focused human development. The UN, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and vulnerable countries have increasingly been making this argument. The Nurturing Care Framework is a good foundation for achieving this. For example, ensuring that children have stable and nurturing relationships with the adults in their lives and removing stressors from the lives of families with young children can help build societal resilience. These investments–along with insurance mechanisms to protect children from the impacts of climate change–must form a key part of policy making for the UNFCCC process and every nation in this era.
Shutterstock: Touqa Essam
We know that storms, floods, extreme heat, air quality emergencies, and other climate-related disasters have an outsized impact on the youngest children. We also know that disaster and emergency interventions that focus on their wellbeing have double benefits: they immediately protect the most vulnerable while fostering their long-term potential and quality of life. Education programs can make families aware of possible emergencies and help them prepare with the needs of children in mind. This doesn’t only protect lives, but also paves the way toward more sustainable social and economic development.
But to deliver on this promise, policies and programs that support the youngest children require adequate investment. It’s the only way to increase program quality and ensure that they are delivered equitably, at the right time in life. To also deliver on the promise of sustainable communities, early childhood policies and programs will need to be developed in interdisciplinary collaboration with climate, environment and sustainable development experts.
The president of COP27 should elevate the topic of early childhood development as a fundamental piece of the climate resilience and adaptation puzzle.
These steps are also urgent:
All parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change should amend the mandates of financing mechanisms to recognize the importance of early childhood and allow for funding programs focused on the youngest children and their families.
The World Bank and other international financing bodies should consider early childhood development policies and programs as a fundamental element of financing strategies to promote climate resilience.
All of these bodies should include early childhood development researchers, practitioners, and policy makers in decision making on climate and sustainable development policy. Their expertise is urgently needed in the multidisciplinary discussions of the UN Framework Convention and even more so in developing policies, programs, and interventions responding to climate emergencies.
The time is now.
Adrián Cerezo , PhD, MESc. is a visiting researcher and CHILD project fellow at the Yale Child Study Center. His transdisciplinary work explores the fundamental role of early childhood development in the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals .
He currently serves as senior advisor on early childhood development and climate change to the Asia Pacific Regional Network for Early Childhood (ARNEC), UNICEF Pacific, and the Early Childhood Development Action Network (ECDAN). He is incubating the new Center for Early Years and Sustainable Development Research at the University of Maine. His lifelong aspiration is to contribute to a kinder, more sustainable future for his sons Arcadio and Tadeo and all young children.
All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 1050 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 30th August - 6th September 2022. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all Egypt adults (aged 18+).