Australia’s leading child rights organisations, Save the Children Australia, Plan International Australia, and UNICEF, are urging the federal government to set ambitious emissions targets that keep global warming below 1.5 degrees, in order to protect the lives and livelihoods of future generations.
The newly released National Climate Risk Assessment delivers a stark warning, outlining worsening climate impacts such as more frequent and severe heatwaves, bushfires, floods, prolonged droughts, and rising ocean temperatures if bold and immediate global action is not taken. In Australia alone, sea level rise is believed to affect around 1.5 million people, including more than 300,000 children in total.
Pacific nations are among the hardest hit by climate change, despite being responsible for only 0.02% of global emissions. For children and girls in these communities, the consequences are already alarming. Half of Pacific girls surveyed showed that climate related disasters have interrupted their education, while nearly 50% said the greatest impact has been losing access to safe drinking water. Only 0.6% reported that their health and wellbeing have remained unaffected.
