Johannesburg - While the world’s poorest countries need to do more to support their children’s ability to live healthy lives, excessive carbon emissions - disproportionately from wealthier countries - threaten the future of all the world’s children.
“If global warming exceeds 4°C by the year 2100 in line with current projections, this would lead to devastating health consequences for children, due to rising ocean levels, heatwaves, proliferation of diseases like malaria and dengue, and malnutrition.”
This is among the findings of a landmark report, A Future for the World’s Children? It was released this week by a commission of more than 40 child and adolescent health experts.
No single country is adequately protecting children’s health, their environment and their futures, it finds.
The commission was convened by the World Health Organisation, the UN Children’s Fund and The Lancet.
The report includes two indexes to measure country progress in the extent to which they are able to ensure that all children are able to flourish and lead happy lives - one ranks countries on child flourishing and the second index ranks countries on excess carbon emissions compared with 2030 targets on reducing carbon emissions.
“The two profiles provide a broader picture on current country achievements in ensuring children survive and thrive, juxtaposed with the potential damage they might cause future generations of children through greenhouse gas emissions,” says Mark Tomlinson of Stellenbosh University, who was involved in its compilation
South Africa is an upper middle- income country in 150th position on the child sustainability index, and in 127th position on the flourishing index.
“By comparison, Vietnam (a lower middle-income country) is in 58th position on the flourishing index and in 85th position on the sustainability profile. South Africa’s ranking is therefore cause for concern.”
While South Africa made significant progress in the past decade to improve child survival, rolling out antiretroviral treatment, extending life expectancy and tackling obesity and other non-communicable diseases, it’s also the most unequal country in the world “with significant disparities in access to quality health care coupled with carbon emissions way above 2030 targets”.
Children in Norway, the Republic of Korea, and the Netherlands have the best chance at survival and well-being, while children in Central African Republic, Chad, Somalia, Niger and Mali face the worst odds.
But when the authors took per capita carbon emissions into account, the top countries lag behind. Norway ranked 156, the Republic of Korea 166, and the Netherlands 160. Each of these three countries emit 210% more carbon per capita than their 2030 target.
The US, Australia, and Saudi Arabia are among the 10 worst emitters.
The only countries on track to beat carbon emission per capita targets by 2030, while also performing fairly (within the top 70) on child flourishing measures are: Albania, Armenia, Grenada, Jordan, Moldova, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Uruguay and Vietnam.
Evidence suggests that children in some countries view up to 30000 adverts on TV alone in a single year, while youth exposure to vaping adverts soared by more than 250% in the US over two years, reaching more than 24million young people.
To protect children, the authors call for a new global movement “driven by and for children”.
Their recommendations include stopping carbon emissions with utmost urgency “to ensure children have a future on this planet”; placing children and adolescents “at the centre of our efforts to achieve sustainable development”; new policies and investment in all sectors to work towards child health and rights; incorporating children’s voices into policy decisions; and tightening national regulation of harmful commercial marketing.