PRESS CONFERENCE BY PERMANENT MISSION OF GREECE, UNICEF

ON HOW CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS CHILDREN

 

Global climate change had an impact on every aspect of the work carried out by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the opportunity to link the environment with children’s rights had been presented by two dramatic intergovernmental events taking place simultaneously -- the follow-up to the 2002 General Assembly special session on children in New York and the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Hilde Johnson said at Headquarters this afternoon.

At a press conference to launch UNICEF’s new publication, Climate Change and Children, she said climate change was often viewed in terms of its dramatic, obvious manifestations, such as the increase in the number of natural disasters and extremes in temperature.  But the overlooked “quiet impact” often hit children even harder, as with the effects of desertification, water scarcity and the abandonment of land that could no longer sustain families.  That led to children missing school because they had to long walk distances in search of water or shivering from malaria in the cold.

As usual, she said, poor people paid the highest price because they lived in the areas most at risk from climate change, and among the poor, children suffered the most, paying with their health, their development and often with their lives.  “So climate change is not just an environmental issue.  It is an economic, social and human issue,” she emphasized.  Each year more than 3 million children under the age of five died from environmentally linked diseases, including diarrhoeal ailments linked to water accessibility, respiratory illnesses and malaria, which thrived on heat and humidity to kill a million people each year, 80 per cent of whom were children.  The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that the number of children dying from asthma each year could increase by 20 per cent by 2016 if urgent action was not taken to reduce emissions from vehicles and factories.

She said UNICEF was working with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and organizations like the Human Security Network to develop a strategy to promote safe and healthy environments for children.  One focus would be on developing and implementing measures to reduce environmental risks to child survival, protecting children from those risks, and education.  Another focus would be on enhancing capacities to respond to children’s needs in the event of humanitarian crises linked to climate change, as in the case of natural disasters.  The UNICEF delegation’s message to Government leaders in Bali was that actions taken to protect the environment would directly impact on the rights of children.

Accompanying Ms. Johnson was Panayotis Goumas, Special Coordinator for the Greek Chairmanship of the Human Security Network, who said the term “human security” implied freedom from fear, freedom from want and freedom to live in dignity.  The 13-member intergovernmental body’s special interest in making the linkage between the environment and children’s rights was due in part to the May 2007 to May 2008 chairmanship of Greece, whose tenure was devoted solely to raising public awareness of the impact of climate change on vulnerable groups such as children, women and those displaced by climate-related environmental changes.

He said once the theme for the Greek chairmanship had been decided, organizations and think tanks had been recruited to prepare policy papers on each vulnerable group.  The outcome of cooperation between the Network and UNICEF would go towards the preparation of the policy paper on children.  The Network had already held an event on overall human security in Athens.  Other planned events included a joint meeting in Geneva between the Network and the International Organization for Migration, on the theme of climate change and migration.  A Vienna meeting on climate change and women would be sponsored by Austria.

The Human Security Network is a 10-year-old cross-regional group of 13 countries dedicated to promoting United Nations values and building a humane world of security and dignity.  Other members are Austria, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ireland, Jordan, Mali, Norway, Switzerland, Thailand and Slovenia, with South Africa as an observer.

In response to questions, Ms. Johnson said emergency preparedness and risk reduction would play a central role in the policy paper being prepared with the Network and contained in the UNICEF strategy for dealing with climate change and children.  Climate change was related to all other issues affecting children, since the effects translated into the presentation of greater difficulties in delivering assistance.  The strategy’s emphasis would be on building the capacity to respond in environmentally vulnerable areas, including through preparedness workshops.

In response to another question, she said UNICEF had about 10,000 employees worldwide, operating in 156 countries.  In each of those, about two or three personnel were employed as emergency coordinators.

The launch was held on the second day of the commemorative high-level plenary meeting devoted to the follow-up to the outcome of the special session on children and in the second week of the Bali Conference.

* *** *

For information media • not an official record