Children from the poorest families are up to ten times more likely to bear the brunt of environmental disasters linked to climate change.
Thursday 9 December 2010
The research shows that 67% of the poorest children in Ethiopia were hit by an environmental shock, compared to 6.5% of children from better off families. The poorest families live predominantly in rural areas where droughts and flooding have wiped out their crops and destroyed their homes.
The data comes from our Young Lives project, which collects information on approximately 3,000 children from India, Ethiopia and Vietnam, and follows their progress over time.
Ethnicity and caste are important determinants of vulnerability to climate change. In Vietnam, research showed that children from the marginalised H’mong ethnic group were almost seven times more likely to suffer from drought than the majority Kinh group. And in Andhra Pradesh, India children from the most marginalised groups (such as scheduled tribes and scheduled castes) were six times more likely to have been hit by flooding than other wealthier communities.
“Most of the biggest environmental disasters this year have hit the poorest nations in the world, and children from the poorest and most disadvantaged groups in those countries have been hit the hardest”, said Lydia Baker, Save the Children’s Humanitarian Policy Advisor. “These disasters put children’s heath at extreme risk. Cyclones and flooding can destroy homes, leaving children sleeping out in the open and vulnerable to killer diseases such as malaria and pneumonia. When droughts and pests destroy crops, there’s often no way the poorest parents are able to afford even basic food items for their children.”
Disasters like droughts, cyclones, flooding, crop failures and increased pest invasions, such as locusts, attacking crops are all expected to get worse in years to come due to changing weather patterns.
Biggest year for international humanitarian responses
2010 has also overtaken the year of the tsunami to become the biggest for international emergency responses, with humanitarian funding to date totalling more than 14 billion US dollars.
Cancun: Make or break opportunity
“The world leaders meeting in Cancun this week have a make or break opportunity to save the lives of millions of children whose lives will be made even worse because of climate change,” Baker said. “They need to make a firm agreement on adaptation funding at Cancun and must focus on prioritising the poorest who are least responsible for climate change and the most marginalised people. Failure to do so is unacceptable.”
Find out more about the impact of climate change on children