Climate change ‘a threat to every child’
THE health and future of every child and adolescent across the world is under threat from ecological degradation, climate change and exploitative marketing practices that push fast food, sugary drinks, alcohol and tobacco at children.
This is according to a commission report, “A Future for the World’s Children”, convened by the World Health Organisation and UnicefLancet.
Stellenbosch University professor, Mark Tomlinson, who was involved in the report, said it included two indices that measured a country’s progress on how it was ensuring children led happy lives. He said they compared performance on “child flourishing”, including measures of child survival and well-being, as well as a proxy for greenhouse gas emissions, equity or income gaps.
South Africa was found to have performed poorly across both metrics, ranking 127th out of 180 countries. “South Africa’s ranking is a cause for concern. Although we have made significant progress in the last decade in improving child survival, South Africa is also the most unequal country in the world, with significant disparities in access to quality health care, coupled with carbon emissions way above 2030 targets,” Tomlinson said.
He added that children should not merely survive, but thrive, and countries needed to create enabling conditions to assist them to flourish.
“Efforts such as the National Health Insurance are aimed at reducing disparities and providing access to quality health care. Achieving this, with continued environmental efforts to reduce emissions and the expansion of other public health initiatives, will improve South Africa’s ranking.”
The index shows children in Norway, South Korea and the Netherlands have the best chance at survival and well-being, while children in the Central African Republic, Chad, Somalia, Niger and Mali face the worst odds.
However, when authors took per capita CO2 emissions into account, the top countries trailed behind: Norway ranked 156th, South Korea 166th, and the Netherlands 160th. Each emits 210% more CO2 per capita than their 2030 target. The US, Australia, and Saudi Arabia are among the 10 worst emitters.
Minister Awa Coll-Seck from Senegal, co-chairman of the commission, said more than
2 billion people lived in countries where development was hampered by humanitarian crises, conflicts and natural disasters, problems linked with climate change.
“While some of the poorest countries have among the lowest CO2 emissions, many are exposed to the harshest impacts of a rapidly changing climate. Promoting better conditions today for children to survive and thrive nationally does not have to come at the cost of eroding children’s futures globally,” Coll-Seck said.