Prof Alan Stein and Dr Lynette Okengo have strongly supported the call to declare the climate crisis a global public health emergency, emphasizing that children must be placed at the forefront of the response. In a letter published in The Guardian, they argue that prioritising children is vital for future resilience.
Evidence of climate impacts on children
The experts point to ample evidence showing how critical the early years of a child's life are, and how these years are increasingly disrupted by climate change. Droughts, flooding, food insecurity, displacement, and extreme heat are already affecting children's nutrition, learning, and physical and mental health. Early impairments to development can echo throughout a person's life, and some physical impairments may even be passed on to subsequent generations.
These impacts are occurring worldwide and will become more severe as extreme weather events increase in severity and number. For many countries, these effects threaten decades of progress made in child health and education.
Need for targeted policies and child participation
Responding to this challenge requires targeted policies based on robust climate attribution evidence, but it also demands giving voice to the youngest citizens. All too often, children are left out of climate discussions or policy planning. At Cop30, the Brazilian health ministry established the Belém Health Action Plan as a roadmap for health ministries to adapt to climate change. Following consultation, including from the authors' initiative, children were included as an important part of this plan.
This advocacy is a constant task for many organisations, such as their consortium, but ultimately the inclusion of children needs to become second nature for policymakers.
Practical and moral framework
The coming decades will present myriad challenges for adaptation and overlapping health crises. Thinking about how adaptive processes will respond to the needs of children is useful as both a practical and moral framework for prioritising actions. Declaring the climate crisis a global public health emergency would be a strong start, but foregrounding children in that emergency will be vital for future resilience.
