Climate Change and Children

Children are the most precious gifts of God. However, if you look at the ways in which children all over the world get affected by climate change you would tend to believe that we do not take enough good care of this precious gift.

Some of the key facts published by UNEP about children and climate change include the following:

1.More than 46 % of the world population is now younger than 25 years old.

2. Approximately 175 children will be affected by climate change induced natural disaster every year over the next decade. This is 50 million more than during ten years to 2005.

3.Children are more likely than adults to perish during natural disasteror succumb to malnutrition, injuries or disease in the aftermath. Over 96 % of all disaster-related deaths worldwide in recent years have occurred in developing countries.

4.Deaths from asthma, which is the most common chronic disease among children, are expected to increase by nearly 20 % by 2016 unless urgent action is taken.

5.One in ever three children in Ethiopia will have safe water.By 2020 it is projected that some 75 to 250 million people in Africa will be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change. 44 % of the continent's population is under the age of 15 years.

6. Climate change can also have a significant impact on a child's ability to attend school. For example, during July 2007 floods in Sudan 200 schools were destroyed affecting nearly 45000 children.

Perhaps it is time to remind the grown-ups that you do not inherit the earth from past generations but borrow it from the future ones!