The rights of children

Noteworthy for the 2024 SBs was a mandated dialogue on children and climate change. Some key messages:

• Enhanced climate resilience of children includes all aspects necessary for survival, health, and development such as water, food and nutrition, sanitation, health, education, safety, and social services.
• Girls are uniquely vulnerable, as they may be subjected to increased domestic burdens, interruptions in education, child labor, forced marriages, and gender-based violence.
• Policies are needed that provide benefits immediately and last a lifetime. It is important to consider the protection of the child plus everything that supports the child – parents, caregivers, families, schools, communities, and others.
• Impacts and necessary safeguards often differ by age group and can last lifetimes. Early intervention (between 1-3 years) is important.
• Quality climate education is needed at all age levels. Greening school grounds can serve as both mitigation and adaptation. Curricula should prepare youth for changing conditions as well as for a new green economy and green jobs.
• The unique needs of children should be factored into all UNFCCC agendas and actions including in NDCs and NAPs, IPCC Reports, Loss and Damage actions (which should consider both economic and non-economic losses), and Finance.
• Children should be involved in these discussions, serve on future panels, and should be given agency to make decisions. Preparing youth and providing ways for them to get involved and contribute to solutions is important because it is their futures, and it can help reduce climate anxiety and grief.

The session was concluded by a statement from an indigenous perspective. (My apologies for not catching the speaker’s name or affiliation.) The speaker said to think of our ancestors and what they would do, taking their best practices and learning from their mistakes, while considering the present day, and thinking of multiple generations from now. This type of thinking helps ensure protection and sustainable use of natural resources.