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Journalism of Courage
Essential data, facts and figures from reports, policies, schemes and important documents for UPSC-CSE. Do not forget to solve the MCQ. The Post Read Q&A will help you to self-evaluate your retention memory after reading the article.
Prelims: General issues on Environmental Ecology, Biodiversity, and Climate Change – that do not require subject specialisation.
Mains: GS III Syllabus — Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.
Relevance: Reports are an important part of UPSC exams. Reports on the environment and climate change can be either asked directly in exams or can be good fodder for mains answers. This one is not a usual report. It connects climate (heatwaves) with children. We go Beyond the Report to discuss How climate change will be a greater burden on children born today?
Why in news?
—United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) recently released a report. The title of this report is “The coldest year of the rest of their lives”.
—It calls for “Protecting children from the escalating impacts of heatwaves”.
What are the key takeaways of this report?
—According to unicef.org, following are the highlights of this report:
—The climate crisis is rapidly accelerating and with it, heatwaves are becoming longer, stronger, more widespread and more frequent.
—Already, around 559 million children are exposed to high heatwave frequency and around 624 million children are exposed to one of three other high heat measures – high heatwave duration, high heatwave severity or extreme high temperatures.
—This report provides yet more evidence that children are on the front lines of the climate crisis.
—By 2050, virtually every child on earth – over 2 billion children – is forecast to face more frequent heatwaves, regardless of whether the world achieves a ‘low greenhouse gas emission scenario’ with an estimated 1.7 degrees of warming in 2050 or a ‘very high greenhouse gas emission scenario’ with an estimated 2.4 degrees of warming in 2050.
—These findings underscore the urgent need to adapt the services children rely on as unavoidable impacts of global heating unfold. It also makes a case for more substantial emissions reduction, to prevent the worst impacts of the other high heat measures.
—These heat waves will make it difficult for young people to regulate their body temperature. Therefore resulting in vulnerablity to health issues like chronic respiratory conditions, asthma, and cardiovascular diseases.
—Millions more children will be exposed to high heatwave severity and extreme high temperatures depending on the degree of global heating reached.
—Children in northern regions will face the most dramatic increases in high heatwave severity while by 2050, nearly half of all children in Africa and Asia will face sustained exposure to extreme high temperatures.
—Extreme atmospheric heat can result in drought, which will cause hurdles in accessing clean drinking water and healthy food.
—The report highlights that the heatwaves will result in the stunted development of children and force families to migrate.
What does the report suggest in form of 4 Ps to save children from heat?
—According to the UNICEF’s report:
“Heat is especially damaging to children’s health and affects their education and future livelihoods. Countries must act now by:
Protecting children from climate devastation by adapting social services.
Preparing children to live in a climate-changed world.
Prioritizing children and young people in climate finance and resources.
Preventing a climate catastrophe by drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions and keep 1.5 degrees Celsius alive.
Almost every country is experiencing changing heatwaves. What each government does now will determine the survival of those least responsible for this crisis – our children and young people.”
Beyond the report
How climate change will be a greater burden on children born today?
—In a study published in the journal Science, researchers have found that children born today will be hit much harder by extreme climate events than today’s adults.
—The study is based on data from the Inter-sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP). This is a community-driven climate-impacts modelling initiative that assess the differential impacts of climate change. The ISIMIP data were used alongside country-scale, life-expectancy data, population data and temperature trajectories from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
—During his or her lifetime, a child born in 2021 is likely to experience on average twice as many wildfires, two to three times more droughts, almost three times more river floods and crop failures and about seven times more heat waves compared to a person who is, say, 60 years old today, the researchers have found.
—A press release issued by the Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said that under a scenario of current “insufficient” climate policies, dangerous extreme heatwave events, which affect about 15% of the global land area today, could treble to 46% by the end of this century.
—However, if countries are able to follow through with their climate policies as decided under the Paris Climate Agreement, this effect could be limited to 22%, which is just seven percentage points more than the global land area that is affected today.
—The release quoted lead author of the study, Wim Thiery from Vrije Universiteit Brussel, as saying: “We even have strong reasons to think that our calculations underestimate the actual increases that young people will face.”
—In terms of experiencing droughts, heatwaves, river floods and crop failures, people under the age of 40 today will live what the researchers call “an unprecedented life”.
—The release quoted Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research scientist Katja Frieler, who is coordinating ISIMIP and is a co-author of the study, as saying:
“The good news: we can indeed take much of the climate burden from our childrens’ shoulders if we limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by phasing out fossil fuel use. If we increase climate protection from current emission reduction pledges and get in line with a 1.5-degree target, we will reduce young people’s potential exposure to extreme events on average by 24% globally. For North America it’s minus 26%, for Europe and Central Asia minus 28%, and in the Middle East and North Africa even minus 39%. This is a huge opportunity.”
Point to ponder: Does Climate change fuel higher heat, flood threats for children ?
MCQ:
Which of the following initiatives of India for whether prediction is/are correctly matched?
a) Only 1 b) 1 and 2
c) 2 and 3 d) 1, 2 and 3
Post Read Q&A
Can you recall what you read?
Answer to previous MCQ: One word a day – CCI (d)
