Ahead of COP27, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and global business leaders have released a joint statement calling on governments and businesses to take decisive action in accelerating climate adaptation and ensuring that the focus on children’s rights remain central to discussions, negotiations, and actions.

How does climate change affect children?

Almost 1 billion children – nearly half of the world’s child population – are at ‘extremely high risk’ of the devastating impacts of climate change, with increased exposure to more frequent, intense, and destructive climate hazards including air pollution, water scarcity, heatwaves, vector-borne disease, cyclones, and river and coastal flooding.

What are the costs of not taking urgent climate action for children?

Globally, nearly 4 billion children will be born over the next three decades who will face rising threats to their survival and prosperity.

If we don’t take urgent action on climate:

• By 2040, it is expected that around 600 million children – or 1 in 4 children worldwide – will be living in areas with extremely limited water resources.

The world is fast heading towards a human-induced climate catastrophe that can only be averted if decisive action is taken now.

What is needed to address the global climate crisis, for every child?

Mitigation – reduction in carbon emissions – measures offer the only long-term solution to address the crisis, but these will likely take decades to reverse the impacts of climate change. Limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius and accelerating investments in adaptation are the only effective ways to save the lives and futures of children and their communities.  Governments, investors and the business community engaged in global climate finance should seek to urgently reduce the currently massive funding gap for climate adaptation and achieve the pledged balance between mitigation and adaptation financing.

What role can business play in delivering climate action for children and the planet?

Businesses have been credible partners to governments in steering global efforts towards net-zero, committing to ambitious targets to reduce carbon emissions, and putting forward groundbreaking innovative solutions, and forge partnerships and pathways to speed-up the transition to a green economy.

Businesses can harness the opportunities of climate action – which could unlock trillions in investments and create millions of jobs through 2030 – and deliver long-term value to their stakeholders, people, and more importantly, children.

More information:

https://iccwbo.org/content/uploads/sites/3/2022/11/business-statement-cop-27.pdf