A global call to action for early childhood

54
Activities of the CG Secretariat
The impacts of climate change on young children
and implications for programming in early childhood
In addition to focusing on priority
areas including young children and
Emergencies, HIV/AIDS, Costing and
Financing and Leadership, the CG
has convened a new Working Group
on the Impact of Climate Change on
Young Children as result of the CG’s
2007 Annual Consultation.
The theme of the Annual Meeting,
16th-18th October, hosted this
year by UNICEF, UNESCO and the
Government of Chile, was to identify
the impacts of climate change on
young children and the implications
for ECCD programming. A day
of presentations, discussion, and
action planning was designed by
Leon Charles 1 , presented and led by
Leonard Nurse 2 , and facilitated by
Sian Williams 3 . In the week preceding
the meeting the award of the Nobel
Peace Prize to the Inter-Governmental
Panel on Climate Change provided
additional gravitas both to the content
and to the leadership by Leonard
Nurse at the meeting.
The scientific evidence of the impacts
of climate change was summarised as
follows:
• Climate change is already occurring,
and is accelerating.
• The impacts are already evident and
will become even more evident within
the next 10-40 years.
• Climate change can no longer be
regarded simply as an “environmental
problem.” It is a human development
issue that threatens to undermine the
global socioeconomic system.
• Children on all continents and in all
nations, regions, communities, and
groups will be affected, but some will
be worse off than others.
• The changes we are witnessing are
largely human-induced, and we can
do something about them.
• Climate change is a global challenge
that cannot be tackled successfully
unless there is a commitment by all
nations to participate in a manner
that is consistent with their historic
contribution to the problem and their
respective capabilities to respond
(access to financial resources and
technology).
The cost of tackling climate change is
affordable and will cost an average of
0.12% of annual global GDP in the
period up to 2030 (IPCC). These costs
are significantly lower than the cost
of the damage that will result from
unmitigated climate change (Stern
Review of the Economics of Climate
Change, 31 January 2006, Cambridge
University Press, UK).
The presentations identified the key
impacts, region by region, including
the increased destructiveness, intensity
and duration of natural disasters,
water shortage, food insecurity, poor
sanitation, and health and the major
consequences of these impacts for
the acceleration of migration, conflict,
poverty, and social and economic
instability. Most sobering of all was
the evidence that, even if greenhouse
gas emissions were stabilised at
current levels, climate change will
continue for the next 100 years due to
the level of emissions already present
in the atmosphere.
Having considered the presentations
made by Leonard Nurse on the
scientific evidence for climate
change and the impacts on
children participants in the Annual
Consultation discussed in breakout
groups the implications
for programming in four key
areas: advocacy, networking,
re-programming, and child
participation.
The declaration (http://www.
ecdgroup.com/climatechange.
asp) drafted for comment and
subsequently developed further in the
last plenary session serves to clarify
our commitment as CG partners
raising awareness and to urging
governments to take action.
In summary, five main areas emerged
for strategic intervention in what
we came to describe as a process of
‘re-programming,’ by which we mean
the adjustment—radical or otherwise
—to what we currently do in ECCD
programming that accompanies a
paradigm shift, the awareness of a
new dimension through which to
1
Leon Charles is Chair, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex 1 parties
to the Kyoto Protocol, 2007, and Development Consultant on Early Childhood Development in the Caribbean.
2
Leonard Nurse is Member of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a lead author on each of the four global assessments of the
impact of climate change including the recent 2007 report, and Senior Lecturer on the Graduate Programme in Climate Change, Centre for Resource
Management and Environmental Studies, University of the West Indies.
3
Sian Williams is Caribbean Early Childhood Development Adviser, UNICEF, and Member of the Executive Board of the Consultative Group on Early
Childhood Care and Development, 2005-2007.
COORDINATORS’ NOTEBOOK: ISSUE 29