Children Must Be at the Center of Climate Action

2023 to 2025 have been the three hottest years on record. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were at the highest they have been in the last 3.5 million years, and climate-related challenges, such as flooding, droughts, and air pollution, are on the rise. Today, nearly every child faces at least one climate shock per year, impacting their education, health, and well-being. Yet children have been largely disregarded in the response to climate change. With global temperatures rising, children must be at the center of climate action. 

Climate change curbs children’s ability to learn

Climate shocks often negatively impact vulnerable families’ household income, thereby limiting available resources to support their children’s schooling. Girls are at relatively greater risk of dropping out post-climate shocks; when forced to choose between sending their boys or girls to school due to less savings, families typically send their boys. In Botswana, for example, following major droughts, girls accounted for 70 percent of the children who were pulled out of school. In some contexts, climate stressors may also result in higher cases of early marriage, migration and displacement, or child labor, further disrupting children’s education. In southern India, for example, adverse rainfall shocks resulted in an uptick in households sending their children to work rather than school to supplement household earnings.

In cases where children can afford to continue school, climate shocks pose serious challenges to students’ learning experiences. Children learning in hotter climates or with excessive air pollution complete less formal schooling, struggle with more disciplinary issues, and score lower on standardized tests than those studying in environments with cooler temperatures and better air quality. Two decades of evidence from Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam points to clear correlations between greater climate shocks and lower cognitive outcomes among 12,000 children. Even within countries, students from lower-income households typically fall further behind their more privileged classmates; data from 58 countries shows that more hot school days exacerbated learning gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students within and across countries.

Such challenges are compounded when climate disasters harm school infrastructure, such as the classroom buildings, power grids, roads, and water and sanitation facilities, without which students are unable to safely and effectively learn. This can be especially detrimental for children with disabilities who may otherwise have less access to assistive technologies or accessible infrastructure to continue learning. Slower onset climate change, such as desertification or sea level rise, can also weaken education infrastructure over time, creating additional vulnerabilities and further putting childrens’ learning at risk.

Climate change hurts children’s physical and mental health 

Health risks among children can stem as early as the womb, when high temperatures and air pollution during pregnancy can negatively impact fetal brain and lung development and lead to low birth weight, preterm birth, or stillbirth among babies. A systematic review of 32 million births in the U.S. found that maternal exposure to excessive heat was associated with preterm birth in nearly every study, while according to the State of Global Air, air pollution accounts for 20 percent of newborn deaths worldwide.

During infancy and childhood, children’s immune systems and organs are still developing, meaning children breathe at a faster rate and eat and drink more for their size. This makes children more vulnerable to climate change. In terms of the direct effects of climate shocks on children’s health, air pollution makes children increasingly susceptible to dehydration, pneumonia, and asthma. Based on current climate change trends, the Environmental Protection Agency predicts that childhood asthma-related emergency department visits in the U.S. will increase from 17 to 30 percent each year. In terms of the indirect effects of climate shocks on children, rising heat and drought can reduce crop yields and increase malnutrition and dehydration; tornadoes and hurricanes can disrupt access to health services; and greater flooding can increase the prevalence of water-borne diseases among children. In Indonesia, for example, a recent shift in rainfall patterns multiplied the mosquito population, resulting in greater malaria transmission among children.

In general, trauma from climate shocks can destroy homes and uproot families, resulting in higher rates of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress among children. This stress can compound into high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and cognitive decline later in life. As of today, half the world’s children grapple with extreme risks from climate-related events.

Investing in children counters climate change

Quality education improves children’s cognitive skills, their decision-making potential, their health and well-being, and their short- and long-run abilities to take effective climate action. In fact, each additional year of education increases children’s pro-climate beliefs, behaviors, and policy preferences. Notably, education focused on climate change awareness, environmental stewardship, and green skills development can directly shape climate mitigation and adaptation going forward by training the next generation of climate activists. In the immediate-term, such activists may be more inclined to share information across communities about the risks of climate change; a study in the U.S. found that educating youth about global warming increased parents’ concerns around climate change, with girls being more effective at influencing parents. In the long-term, they may be more inclined to select greener goods and services, work in jobs created by the green transition, or develop the technology for a net zero emissions future.

Currently, children also have almost no formal role in climate policy decisions and are rarely considered in climate mitigation and adaptation plans. According to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, taking children’s views into account when designing and delivering climate decisions would result in more ambitious and effective environmental protection policies. Yet to date, only 2.4 percent of climate finance from major multilateral climate funds supports projects with child-responsive activities. This number must increase at least 10-fold to more effectively support children.

Ultimately, children represent the future of humanity. As the population with the most to lose and greatest potential to contribute, children must be at the heart of climate action planning and policies.