In the past two installments of the children and climate change series, the dangers of climate change were discussed especially with regards to forced migration. Disease, the breakdown of the family roles, and the loss of childhood were all explored in depth and the recognition that all the Convention on the Rights on the Child be upheld to its fullest. UNICEF UK takes us one step further by stressing the need for “engaging children as actors in the climate change agenda rather than treating them as passive observers or victims”. This means not only giving them the voice needed to express how climate change is affecting them, but giving them a voice to bring about meaningful change in the climate change agenda that is occurring now.

For its part, UNICEF has pledged to continue its Millennium Development Goals as well as to build on its ‘’water and sanitation programme [as well as] …providing mosquito nets… water, schools, health clinics, and support for rural communities whose livelihoods are becoming more challenging due to climate change’’. Including children in all aspects of these programs from education to implementation will mean children can move from victim to agent of change. Given the nature of climate change-that it will affect all- means all of us including children should play a part in mitigating the effects.

Photo credit: Creative Commons Flickr member Teseum

Understanding why children are more adversely affected than adults is key to protecting children affected by climate change. But even more imperative is defining “childhood” and what it means in different countries. In many places in the world, childhood is no different than adulthood meaning children are expected to work from an early age and provide income for their families. In situations where children lose one or more parents, they can become the sole provider for the family. The adverse effects of climate change can exasperate the problems these children face.

One such issue is the rural to urban movement that is occurring at a more rapid pace than before from desertification, water loss, and flooding among others. In places like Africa and India, environmental changes are forcing many rural residents into already overcrowded urban centers. “In India, many of Bombay’s young prostitutes, for instance, are girls from very poor rural villages in Nepal, where increasingly inadequate crop yields, among other factors, lead families to sacrifice one child in order that others may survive” (IIED). In this way, climate change has disrupted traditional ways of life (in this case farming) leading to dire consequences of which children suffer the greatest.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child was created to ensure children have “the right to survival; to develop to the fullest; to protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation; and to participate fully in family, cultural and social life”. Making sure the Convention is upheld especially in regards to climate change is one cornerstone to protecting the most vulnerable. Of course this shouldn’t minimize the resilience that children have as well as their potential as agents of change, but provide a legal framework to ensuring children’s basic rights are met.

Photo credit: DanChurchAid

The movements of peoples around the world due to climate change affects all of those involved but none is more susceptible to the problems created by climate change migration than children. Current trends show climate change is impacting the developing world much more directly than upon the developed world. Furthermore, 85% of the estimated 2.2 billion children in the world live in the developing world leaving children at greater risk for diseases, exploitation and the psychological impacts that is sure to affect generations to come.

UNICEF’s report entitled, “Climate Change and Children: A Human Security Challenge” outlines these risks including the “increasingly convincing body of evidence that many of the main killers of children (malaria, diarrhoea and undernutrition) are highly sensitive to climatic conditions”. According to a paper by the International Institute for Environment and Development, a decrease in water supply, increased desertification, and rising sea levels among others all mean a rise in forced migration thus “more malnutrition, more disease, more death and injury, more risk of neglect, abuse and exploitation” have all been documented outcomes in youth populations.

The story of Petro, a street child in Malawi highlights this risk. Because of a number of bad harvest seasons in his rural village, his parents had no way to feed him. His father eventually found a job on a plantation far from their village and Petro was left to fend for himself. Ultimately Petro found himself begging on the streets of Blantyre, Malawi’s biggest city. The catalyst for Petro’s move was the drought causing the bad harvest which ultimately caused a breakdown in his family and eventual move to an urban area.

To better understand why a family breakdown could occur so seemingly with ease, it is imperative to understand the role of a child within many developing countries and how the Convention on the Rights of the Child plays a definitive part in changing that role. This, coupled with the need to raise awareness of a new kind of forced migration caused by climate change to hopefully garner greater protection for children set forth in the Convention on the Rights of the Child are vital to ending stories like Petro’s.