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Climate change poses a huge barrier to a fulfilling future, argues Lord Puttnam, an ambassador for Unicef UK.
When world leaders sit round the table in Copenhagen next month to try and tackle what has become possibly the greatest moral crisis of my generation, a unique responsibility rests on their shoulders as they try to decide what kind of world future generations will inherit.
What price will children have to pay for the three or four carbon-happy generations that have lived before them? The prognosis is not good.
In the past month alone, the world has been shaken by a series of disasters, such as typhoons and floods in the Philippines.
With weather-related disasters predicted to only increase in severity and frequency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stresses the grave consequences others will face if we continue down the high emissions pathway we appear to have chosen - increased child poverty, inequity and death.
Carrying capacity
There is no doubt that my generation has uniquely contributed to this increasing chaos, and the burden my grandchildren and those of others will have to carry because of it. What is less clear, however, is what price today's decision makers will place on the well-being of future generations when carving out their response to climate change.
A new paper released by Unicef UK - Climate Change, Child's Rights and Intergenerational Justice - makes it clear that their responsibility is huge, particularly when it comes to protecting the rights and future well-being of children. Climate change is not just an environmental problem, it is a human rights issue. In fact it's the biggest child rights problem of our time.
With the potential rise of up to 160,000 child deaths a year in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia directly resulting from climate change, it is children, the most vulnerable children, who will be caught at the centre of the storm. They will unquestionably carry the greatest burden - both as children and as future adults - and yet they are the least culpable for its damage.
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Source: BBC News
