Climate change is real: Children will be more affected by heat

Ground Report | New Delhi: Climate change is real; A new report by the NGO 'Save the Children' claims that children face an average of seven times more heatwaves and nearly three times more drought, floods, and crop failure due to rapid climate change. may fall.

It will have the biggest impact on children from middle and low-income countries. Children are 18 times more likely to face heatwaves in Afghanistan than adults. In Mali, it is possible that children will have to bear the effects of 10 times more crops going to waste.

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more impact on children

"People are suffering, we should not turn our backs on it… Climate change is the biggest crisis of this era," says 15-year-old Anoushka, who hails from Nepal. "I am worried about climate change, about my future. It will be almost impossible for us to survive," Anushka told reporters.

The NGO did not give a full introduction to Anushka. To keep him safe, the organization talked to journalists along with him. The new research is the result of a collaboration between climate researchers from Save the Children and Belgium Vrije University Brussels.

For this, children born in 2020 compared to children born in 1960, the impact of extreme climate events on their lives was calculated over their lifetime. This study has also been published in the journal "Science".

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Climate change is real

It said an estimated 2.6 to 3.1 degree Celsius rise in global temperature would have an "unacceptable impact on children". Inger Ashing, chief executive of Save the Children, said: "The climate crisis is truly a child rights crisis."

Ashing further said, “We can reverse this situation but for that, we have to listen to the children and start working immediately. There can be a lot of hope for the bright future of children.

The Save the Children report found that, if global warming is kept to 1.5C, the additional lifespan of newborns would be reduced by 45% for heatwaves and by about 40% compared to currently projected levels for droughts and floods. (Climate change is real: Children)

“This is what governments head to the COP26 global climate talks in Glasgow in November. The lives and future of these children are all at stake,” said report author and Save the Children advisor Erin Ryan. Children from the Philippines to the Solomon Islands described how increasing climate disasters left them vulnerable, affected their mental health, and disrupted their education.

future at stake

The UN Climate Science Panel warned in August that global warming was dangerously close to getting out of control and would bring climate disruption on a global scale for decades to come. National pledges to cut emissions are insufficient to limit global temperature rise to "well below" 2C and ideally 1.5C above pre-industrial times, as nearly 195 countries committed to the 2015 Paris Agreement have done.

"I was struck - it was really disappointing," said Chetan of the Philippines, who was just eight years old when his home was destroyed in 2013 by Typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful tropical cyclones in history. More than 6,300 people were killed.

"It was the worst of everything at the time - I don't want anyone to experience it," said the 16-year-old teenager. Others said youth should pressurize governments to make changes. "I really want to see world leaders take action because it's putting everyone at risk," said Ella, 14, from Australia.

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