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Climate Change Adaptation (CCA)
There is no scientific ambiguity to the fact that the world’s climate is warming and that this warming over the past 50 years is attributable in part to man’s activities. There is a wide consensus that this warming will lead to changing rainfall patterns, rising sea levels, increased spread of tropical disease, loss of biodiversity and increased frequency and amplitude of weather related natural disasters. Children are particularly at risk in a disaster and vulnerable to the incremental impacts of climate change. It is essential that their immediate and longer-term survival, protection and developmental needs are considered in any activities to prepare for or mitigate a potential disaster, or adapt to the negative impacts of longer-term climatic trends. Communities and local authorities need to listen to children to find out what risks they might face and how they might respond to them.
CCA programs are activities which aim to make adjustments in natural and human systems in response to actual or expected climate change and their effects. For Save the Children, adaptation is principally about practical measures in programming, policy and advocacy which reduce vulnerabilities or increase resilience of children and their communities from the negative effects of climate change. Disaster Risk Reduction and CCA are not mutually exclusive but in fact interdependent; a CCA project may be just as vulnerable to natural hazards as any other project and therefore needs a DRR component to protect the CCA investment. To address the risks and uncertainty predicted by climate change, both DRR and CCA analysis and programming must attempt to take account of the unpredictability of what may happen in the future as the planet continues to get warmer.
Photo: Save the Children
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Feeling the Heat: Child survival in a changing climate
Climate change is the biggest global health threat to children in the 21st century and represents an immediate global emergency. Tackling the issues children face as a result of climate change must be made a priority. Save the Children's report, Feeling t
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Participation and Protection: Children's involvement in Climate Change Debates
Children are not only interested in being part of decisions that affect their future, it is also their right to be involved. Despite sceptics’ accusations of ‘tokenism’ and adult ‘manipulation’, when they are well-informed about climate change and appropr
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Climate Change, Child Rights and Intergenerational Justice- Policy Briefing
The response to climate change will profoundly affect the quality of life of future generations of children, yet this intergenerational aspect has yet to be placed at the heart of climate change discussions. a child rights approach to climate change would
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Perilous Passages- Migration, Mobility and Child Protection Issues in Malda, West Bengal
Research centred on intervention for the category of children at risk of becoming the victims of trafficking in Malda, West Bengal, and the factors that expose a child to the high risk of trafficking in human beings. Building the capacities of local organ
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Every Child Deserves a Family. EveryChild's approach to children without parental care
This document outlines EveryChild’s approach to the growing problem of children without parental care. It defines key concepts, analyses the nature and extent of the problem, explores factors which place children at risk of losing parental care, and exami
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Rights, Needs and Capacities of Children in a Changing Climate
Children have contributed the least to climate change but are already disproportionately affected by its impacts – the same will apply to future generations of children. Children have a right to adaptation support and a right to participate in decisions a
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Newborn and child survival. Policy Brief
An estimated 8.8 million children die before the age of five each year – that’s almost one child every three seconds.Nearly all – 97% – of these children die in low- or middle-income countries, and disproportionately from the poorest and most marginalised
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What will it take to achieve the Millennium Development Goals?
Due to the combination of high food prices, climate change and the impact of the international financial and economic crises, disparities in Millennium Development Goal (MDG) achievement can be seen within and between countries. This report identifies a c
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Climate change, children and youth in Cambodia: Successes, challenges and policy implications
The brief presents an overview of climate impacts in the context of existing poverty and vulnerability, before specifically focusing on child impacts. The brief draws on Children in a Changing Climate (CCC) research with children, presenting views of the
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Our climate, our children, our responsibility: The implications of climate change for the world's children
For the vast majority of people the impact of climate change means an increased risk of losing their homes and livelihoods, more disease, less security and sometimes death. Children in the world’s poorest communities are the most vulnerable. They are alre
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Climate change and urban children. Impacts and implications for adaptation in low- and middle-income countries
This paper examines the possible impacts for children of different ages from the increasing risk of climate change, focusing on preparedness and responses to extreme events, as well as constraints that climate change is likely to bring to urban centres in
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Climate change and displacement
In response to growing pressures on landscapes and livelihoods, people are moving, communities are adapting. This issue of FMR (Forced Migration Review) debates the numbers, the definitions and the modalities – and the tension between the need for researc