Next month, the UK has two massive opportunities – COP 27 and the G20 summit – to show children worried about the climate emergency that it’s still prepared to be a global leader in providing solutions to help build them a better future.
The UK has shown leadership in the past by setting a legally binding net zero target, making progress in reducing domestic greenhouse gas emissions, and convening heads of state as president of last year’s COP 26 in Glasgow. But the truth is that the UK is one of the largest historical contributors to climate change and one of the richest countries in the world – it could and should have gone further.
Taking Steps backwards
Now it looks like the UK is taking steps backward with ongoing talks about returning to fracking, which will increase our reliance on fossil fuels; new expansion of North Sea oil and gas production, which directly contradicts the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and International Energy Agency’s (IEA) guidance to meet global climate targets; and talks of further cuts to the aid budget, jeopardising the UK’s legacy and commitment to the world’s poorest who are bearing the brunt of a climate emergency they didn’t create.
For the UK to contradict itself in this way is wrong, undermines international trust, and is out of sync with the depth, scale and urgency of the emergency.
The devastating impact of climate change
COP 27 and the G20 Summit are coming at a time when we are seeing some of the most devastating impacts of the climate emergency around the world, with children disproportionately affected.
Severe and unprecedented droughts are leading to crop failure and food scarcity across the Horn of Africa. It’s estimated that, as a result, one person is dying every 48 seconds across Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, while 5.7 million children are experiencing acute malnourishment. 83% of children who recently responded to a survey we conducted across 15 countries said they were seeing climate change or inequality affecting the world around them.
This is not just an issue happening somewhere far away. Food and fuel prices are soaring in the UK and globally, with the war in Ukraine and Covid-19 pandemic exacerbating the impacts of the climate emergency on food production, meaning millions of families are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis and unable to get everyday essentials we all need. Tackling the climate emergency is a key part of bringing these interconnected crises to an end and helping to reduce future global instability.
The price of doing nothing
The cost of inaction is deadly – both to children today and in the future. A child born in 2020 will experience nearly 7x more heatwaves in their lifetime compared to a person born in 1960. Children deserve better than this. And they expect more from the adults in charge.
Real change is possible if the UK government acts now. The UK must go further and faster on domestic emissions reduction while protecting and supporting the lowest income families as part of a just transition to a sustainable, prosperous, and energy-secure future. They must also show leadership on the global stage at COP 27 and the G20 summit by:
1. Mobilising more money:
Ramp up new and additional international climate finance (ICF) to meet the UK’s “fair share” of the $100 billion pledge and champion efforts to mobilise a new international ICF pledge to the tune of trillions.
In 2009, rich countries – including the UK - made a pledge to mobilise a collective $100 billion of ICF by 2020 to help lower income countries combat the impacts of climate change. Unfortunately, nearly 3 years later this target still hasn’t been met.
The UK government’s “fair share” of the $100 billion pledge has been estimated by leading think tanks to be between $3.7 - 7.7 billion annually depending on assumptions around the role of the public and private sector. Even the lowest estimate is below the UK’s current commitment of an average £2.3 billion per year (the full commitment is £11.6 billion between 2021-2026) reiterated in the government’s recent International Development Strategy.
More importantly, the $100 billion pledge is only a small drop in the bucket of the ICF needed to address the climate emergency, which has been estimated in the trillions.
The UK should use this international moment to announce increased ICF commitments – new and additional to current Official Development Assistance (ODA) allocations - and lead efforts to form an international consensus around a new pledge that appropriately reflects the scale of the challenge.
2. Putting children first:
Ensure children’s rights are at the centre of climate finance spending by focusing on investments that have the biggest impact for children, including shock-responsive social protection and adaptation for schools and health centres. Child-sensitive metrics, including the impact to their education, health and nutrition during times of crises should be transparently monitored and evaluated.
Although the least responsible for the climate emergency, children are the most vulnerable to its effects. Putting children first means – amongst other investments - ensuring adequate adaptation funding for children’s health, nutrition, and education, and providing social protection and other support for children who have experienced loss and damages.
Equally, we must improve data availability and transparency to include child-sensitive metrics so we can evaluate the impact of these investments.
3. Showing leadership:
Play a leading role in pushing for the development of a new loss and damage finance mechanism by 2023.
We welcome the UK’s recent history of balancing investment in both mitigation and adaptation through its ICF – this is in stark contrast to the global average, where adaptation makes up only around a third of all international climate finance. However, the 2015 Paris Agreement laid out three distinct pillars of climate policy – adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage. And on loss and damage, the UK has been much less ambitious.
Despite some progress to discuss loss and damage at COP 26, no concrete action to progress the loss and damage agenda has been taken since.
For families and communities in lower income countries, the cost of rebuilding infrastructure after climate-related disasters is expected to rise to between $1-1.8 trillion by 2050 despite optimal adaptation measures. Although humanitarian appeals for climate-related disasters have risen, it has not been enough to compensate for loss and damage.
Governments in high income countries must begin to provide an ambitious level of finance to address loss and damage and mobilise this funding through a new loss and damage mechanism. We are calling on the UK government to galvanise international support for a new loss and damage finance mechanism by the end of this year.
The UK government must give children hope for a better future - because a fairer, greener world is both possible and imperative.
Photo: Jarosław Kwoczała/Unsplash Images
