Nearly 1 Billion Children Exposed to High Environmental Risks

A newly published global study reveals the following grim find: close to half the world’s children – nearly 1 billion individuals – are living in countries severely affected by climate and environmental degradation. These challenges are exacerbated by three significant global forces: these are socio demographic changes, climate change and more urgently evolving frontier technologies.

Key Insights:

1. Health Impact:

Working and poor populations are most vulnerable to pollution as well as climate change which has begun to manifest itself through weather catastrophes. Other serious effects include respiratory illness, developmental problems and compromised immunity. The global average temperatures have gone up and this has resulted to emergence of diseases such as malaria, dengue and Zika which are spread through vectors. As well, recurrent flooding has exposed populations to contaminated water that leads to waterborne diseases like cholera and diarrhea which have fastrates of child mortality and morbidity.

2. Regional Challenges:

The South Asian and part of East and Central Africa regions are most affected because of low infrastructure and poor climate change resilience. These areas do not have even the basic facilities like availability of clean water; proper sanitation and adequate medical facilities; problems are further worsened for children. Lack of proper planning for settlement in these areas, population overcrowding and distribution all act to aggravate disaster management needs and have children at their centre.

3. Population Trends:

The world’s children are expected to reach about 2.3 billion by 2050, which will be the apex of children’s population in the world. Nonetheless, India and China, both of which experienced reductions in absolute numbers but still are home to the largest child populations. This demographic change therefore creates a new set of policy challenges of managing resources to deliver on child-centred climate action plans.

The Way Forward:

At the same time, there are recommendations for cooperation with other countries, which is considered necessary to tackle all these issues. There are important things that must currently be done – building better infrastructure, improving readiness, and teaching climate science to children. Governments must support sustainable development goals concerning children such as: the climate action (SDG 13) and good health and well-being (SDG 3).

Relevance for Exams:

This problem is significant for anyone planning to write for General Studies Paper II (UPSC) under headings such as international relations, child rights, and sustainable development. For SSC, it(ans) relates to the Environment & Current Affairs section under which questions on Climate affect or Social susceptibility are often posed.