Citation, opening paragraph and a comment from me below.
CITATION: EDITORIAL| VOLUME 8, ISSUE 7, P467, JULY 2024
Child-centred climate action cannot wait
The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health
Published:June 03, 2024 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-4642(24)00135-4
'The urgency of the climate crisis and its effects on child health are undeniable. According to the latest annual report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change, 2023 saw the highest global temperatures in over 100 000 years. Infants younger than 1 year, who are particularly vulnerable to extreme heat, were exposed to 8·4 days of heatwave annually in 2013–22 compared with 4·0 days in 1986–2005. In 2022, more than 27 million children faced acute food insecurity because of extreme weather in countries heavily affected by the climate crisis, and UNICEF estimates that 739 million children were exposed to high or extremely high water scarcity. As a result, children are at increased risk of dehydration, malnutrition, life-threatening infections (eg, dengue, malaria, vibriosis), among many other adverse health effects, with lifelong consequences on their physical and mental wellbeing and human capital...'
COMMENT (NPW): Arguably even more important than the current impact of climate change on children is the impact of climate change on their future. The children of today are those who will be most impacted by (possibly catastrophic) climate change in the coming decades. The text of the editorial makes passing reference to this: 'Despite being at high risk due to their unique physiology, cumulative exposure over the lifecourse, and social vulnerability, children and adolescents have been largely ignored in the climate response.' An accompanying photo says it more effectively: a girl stands with a placard saying "Why prepare us for a future we might not even see?".
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org