World's poorest children are most vulnerable to climate change; UNICEF

by Rich Bowden - Apr 29 2008, 01:51

The UN's children's agency UNICEF has said the world's poorest and most vulnerable children are most at risk from climate change.

UN body UNICEF has said children in poorer countries are most at risk from climate change. Photo: Malnourished child. Credit: TKnoxB/Flickr

In a new report entitled "Our climate, our children, our responsibility: the implications of climate change for the world’s children", the agency says that the world's more disadvantaged children face a future where "...disasters, violence and disease will be more frequent and intense, clean water and food supplies will diminish, and incomes and productivity will fall."It makes the point that, while richer countries have the necessary resources to adjust to the effects of climate change, poorer countries do not enjoy this luxury.The organisation is calling on wealthier to both provide monetary help for less-well off nations and also to fast track carbon emissions reduction plans."Those who have contributed least to climate change - the world's poorest children - are suffering the most," said David Bull, executive director of Unicef UK."If the world does not act now to mitigate and adapt to the risks and realities of climate change, we will seriously hamper efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 and sustain development progress thereafter," he said.Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern Report for the British Government on the effects of climate change, said: "'Children in the world's poorest communities are the most vulnerable.""They are already seeing the impacts of climate change through malnutrition, disease, poverty and increasing risk of conflict – and ultimately an increase in child mortality rates," he said.The report is being launched in the UK exactly ten years after the country signed the landmark Kyoto Protocol.

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