The Effects of Climate Change on Early Childhood Development

This #FirstYearsFirstPriority campaign scoping paper examines the right of all children to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a fundamental right, and underscores the urgent need to address the impacts of climate change on very young children, who are often invisible in policy and decision-making processes.

This scoping paper examines the right of all children to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a fundamental right, and underscores the urgent need to address the impacts of climate change on very young children, who are often invisible in policy and decision-making processes.

It attempts to gather available information on some of the current and future implications of climate change for very young children. It also underscores the importance of including young children and their families and caregivers in policies, programmes and initiatives to prevent, respond and adapt to the climate crisis. The paper draws on existing research and analysis in this area, worldwide.

Recommendations

Urgent, concerted and sustained action on climate change – both mitigation and adaptation – is essential to protect the wellbeing of the youngest in society, but will also benefit whole communities and societies.

We urge EU governments and institutions to take measures to:

• Enact robust policies and programmes to protect young children from the impacts of climate change, ensuring that climate policies and actions uphold children’s rights from infancy and early childhood.
• Ensure that climate action strategies explicitly include attention to early childhood development, with specific plans to address the impacts of climate change during pregnancy, infancy and children’s early years.
• Ensure that climate action strategies and plans include a focus on the most marginalised young children and their families, and their particular vulnerabilities.
• Develop and implement national and EU legislation to guarantee the right of all children to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, in line with international standards, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and General Comment No. 26 on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change.

The scoping paper is online.