Written by Lotte van Liempd
This Saturday marks the annual celebration of International Children’s Day. Each year on the 20th of November, there is attention for the issues that are affecting children worldwide. Today, more than ever, children and young people worldwide are stressing the impact the climate crisis has and will have on their lives. They're asking for a seat at the table and a voice in climate decision-making. In the past few years, we’ve seen the rise of strongly youth-led actions against climate change. During the most recent Conference of the Parties (COP26) on climate change, various young activists spoke at the event. Fridays for Future, the youth-led climate movement that grew out of Greta Thunberg’s school strikes on Fridays, held a rally in Glasgow that attracted thousands of people. But why is it so important to listen to the voices of children when we’re talking about the climate crisis?
Children and the climate crisis
The climate crisis is often presented as a problem for abstract ‘future generations’. These distant descendants will be the ones that will really experience the consequences of the climate action politicians (don't) take today. But world leaders rarely talk about the fact that those future generations are already among us. Children born today can easily live until the year 2100, and they are being born into a crisis they did not create. It’s not just far-away future scenarios either: Many people on Earth are already facing the impacts of erratic weather patterns, pollution or dwindling biodiversity every day. And children are already experiencing the worst of it. According to a recent UNICEF report, almost 90 percent of children worldwide are exposed to air pollution, which will only worsen unless we drastically reduce the burning of fossil fuels. Over a third of children worldwide are currently at risk of experiencing heat waves, and a similar number can face water scarcity. One in seven children globally is currently at risk of experiencing river flooding. In September, Save the Children published a report that especially mentions wildfires, crop failure, droughts, (river) flooding, and heat waves as extreme climate events that are already affecting children worldwide. All these effects are likely to worsen as global temperatures increase and weather patterns become more extreme and variable. UNICEF states in their report that the effects of these and other environmental hazards, shocks or stressors are likely to deepen existing inequalities, “pushing the poorest children further into poverty.”
The UNICEF researchers created a ‘Children’s Climate Risk Index’, in which they weigh the vulnerability of children in different countries to climate stressors. They include factors such as poverty, nutrition, education and access to health services or water- and sanitation facilities. They weigh these against the risk of (future) exposure to environmental stressors. The top ten countries where children are most vulnerable to harmful consequences of climate change are also some of the poorest countries on earth. Children in the Central African Republic face the highest risk, followed by Chad, Nigeria, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau. The ten most high-risk countries collectively emit only 0.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (while the ten highest emitting countries collectively account for nearly 70 percent of global emissions). The Save the Children researchers confirm that it is mostly children in low- and middle-income countries that are exposed to extreme climate events. Worryingly, these are exactly the countries that have less resources to prevent or deal with these dangers. Girls, LGBTQ+ children, children from Indigenous populations, children with disabilities, children in conflict zones and displaced children face an even higher risk of experiencing the harmful impacts of the climate crisis, as they often already have less access to essential services or protection.
A children’s rights crisis
It is then crucial that we see the climate crisis as a children's rights crisis. Children’s rights were consolidated in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, signed by the UN General Assembly in 1959. Each year on the 20th of November it is International Children’s Day, commemorating and celebrating this declaration. Children’s rights include the right to health and nutrition, education, (social) protection and participation. It is obvious that the harmful effects of climate change have an impact on children’s access to these different rights. For example, children’s rights to health and nutrition are severely implicated if they breathe in polluted air, if they get sick from drinking contaminated water after a flood or if they have too little to eat when a drought affects the local food supply. The World Health Organization estimated in 2014 that unless we drastically reduce our use of fossil fuels, between 2030 and 2050 nearly 95.000 additional children under five years old will die yearly due to climate change-related malnutrition. It is also difficult to study and learn in a heatwave, or if you’re breathing in pollution every day. A child’s right to protection is violated when the climate crisis puts them in dangerous situations, such as if they’re displaced by extreme weather, if they’re separated from their families, or if environmental stressors create or intensify local conflicts and insecurity.
Not too small to make a difference
Children worldwide have been putting pressure on governments to take action against these climate-related rights violations. In September 2019, sixteen children from all over the world actually brought a case to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Forty-eight countries have accepted this Committee’s jurisdiction, and the children filed their complaint against the top-five greenhouse gas emitters in this group. They argued that these five countries - Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey - haven’t done enough to prevent foreseeable human rights violations caused by climate change. The countries are thus shifting the burden onto children and future generations. In October, the UN Committee rejected the case on procedural grounds, as the plaintiffs hadn’t exhausted national legal options before bringing the case to the UN. The children were disappointed by this outcome, stating that there is simply not enough time to go through national courts when they are already experiencing the dangers of climate change. One of the petitioners, Ayakha Melithafa (19) from South Africa, said that “Young people should not need to bring legal claims to hold [political leaders] accountable for the promises [they] made.” Alexandria Villaseñor (16), a plaintiff from the United States, believed that this outcome would make young people even more vocal at the COP26. She said,“If anything, it’s made a lot of us even more upset and even more ready to make our voices heard.” She continued, “That’s why at the COP there’s going to be so many children and activists who are going to be pushing our world leaders.”
During COP26, we indeed saw many children and young people addressing the world leaders that were making crucial decisions on their futures. Vanessa Nakate, a 25-year-old activist from Uganda, spoke at the Conference from a viewpoint of the Global South, where many people are already facing the consequences of the climate crisis. She criticized the “fancy speeches” and “promises” of country leaders and big corporations at the COP26. She said, “Every year, leaders come to these climate negotiations with new pledges, commitments and promises. [But] as each COP comes and goes, emissions continue to rise. This year will be no different.” She then implored world leaders to prove her wrong, by taking drastic action to reduce emissions. Another young speaker was Xiye Bastida (19), who is a half Chilean, half Mexican climate justice activist of the Indigenous Otomí tribe. She has been involved with climate justice activism since she was 15 years old. She emphasizes the role for Indigenous communities in the climate movement and works to ensure marginalized voices are heard within the movement and climate decisions. In her COP26 speech, Xiye described the climate crisis as a generational injustice. “When we talk about the impacts of the climate crisis on future generations, we speak of them as if those generations were not here” she stated, continuing, “But we are present. By 2050, I will be 48 years old. And when I look out of the window, I’ll see the world you are negotiating right now. What will that earth look like?”
Young activists are stressing how important it is for children to be included in these decision-making processes. On Instagram, Xiye writes that the media often frame youth activists as only criticizing world leaders. Instead, she believes that young people can help provide solutions. For example, by demanding world leaders to integrate a focus on climate justice and to move away from fossil fuels and the fossil lobby. Both Vanessa and Xiye are vocal about the importance of listening to young people all over the world who are demanding the necessary climate action. Vanessa also emphasizes, “It is very important for young people across the world to know that you are not too small to make a difference.” Case in point was another activist present in Glasgow: Francisco Javier Vera Manzanares, a 12-year-old Colombian activist. He gained global attention in 2019, after he gave a speech in the Colombian Congress in which he emphasized the importance of “making policies for life”, including laws against fracking, animal testing, single-use plastics and animal abuse. During his speech at the Fridays for Future rally at COP26, Francisco talked about how important it is to listen to the voices of the Global South, and especially the voices of children. In a Facebook post, he writes that “We children are citizens, and we have a great potential for transforming [all] crises, not just the climate crisis. We will keep fighting for the inclusion of children’s voices in creating a biocentric world”.
However, that biocentric world, and the true inclusion of children and young people’s voices in getting there, seems far off. Greta Thunberg, in her speech at the Fridays for Future rally, described the Conference as a “failure”, as “the most affected people, in the most affected areas, still remain unheard. And the voices of future generations are drowning in [the] greenwash and empty promises [of our leaders].” It is therefore essential that world leaders not only create the spaces for young people to voice their experiences and demands, but also to take them seriously. That’s the only way to truly consider their best interests when deciding on their future.