As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the present day attends the Quad Leaders’ Summit, a brand new report from UNICEF reveals that Australia ranks 30 out of 39 economically superior countries on the impact of environmental circumstances on children’s wellbeing.
High on the agenda for the brand new Prime Minister’s first assembly with international leaders – together with US President Joe Biden – is how Australia and the area plan to reply to local weather change.
While Australia ranks positively in the highest 10 of countries featured in the report for points equivalent to air pollution and child-friendly environments, as a nation we fare badly general as a result of of our unsustainable consumption of sources, the quantity of digital waste generated annually and our carbon emissions.
The UNICEF Innocenti Report Card is a sequence of experiences designed to watch and examine the efficiency of economically superior countries in securing the rights of their children – with this newest report, titled ‘Places and Spaces: Environments and children’s well-being’ and focussing on environmental impacts.
“This report shows that Australians’ consumption of resources is not sustainable. Our consumption rates are so high that if everyone in the world lived like the average person in Australia, we would need 4.6 planet earths to sustain these levels of resource consumption,” mentioned Katie Maskiell, Head of Child Rights Policy and Advocacy at UNICEF Australia.
Spain, then Ireland, topped the general league desk, whereas Costa Rica and Romania have been on the bottom of the desk.
The report highlights that environmental considerations are entrance of thoughts for younger Australians. Australian knowledge from PISA in 2018 reveals that younger Australians are among the many highest in the world for understanding about local weather change, with almost 83% of 15-year-old college students understanding about local weather change (the best is 88% in Korea).
“The high rate of eco-anxiety among young people is also spotlighted in this report, comparing the USA, Portugal, France, the UK, Finland and Australia, where 82% of young people here are either ‘extremely’, ‘very’, or ‘moderately’ worried about climate change. 43% were even hesitant about becoming parents – the highest percentage of the six countries compared,” mentioned Ms Maskiell.
UNICEF Australia’s Deputy Director Libby Hodgson says that this stage of information of local weather change and eco-anxiety reveals Australia’s youth wish to be heard on this matter.
“Young people are engaged and active in environment issues and this means it’s vital to include young people in planning and decision making in a range of policy areas including climate change,” mentioned Ms Hodgson.
“UNICEF Australia is asking for authorities to create a National Youth Advisory Council to offer younger folks a direct hyperlink to authorities and to assist form authorities considering on the subject of points affecting younger folks.
“With climate change affecting the frequency and severity of natural disasters, UNICEF Australia also calls for government to develop child-centric disaster frameworks, and fund mental health support to help recovery from such emergencies.”
Globally, whereas Spain, Ireland and Portugal characteristic on the prime of the league desk general, all OECD and EU countries are failing to offer wholesome environments for all children throughout all indicators. Some of the wealthiest countries, together with Australia, Belgium, Canada and the United States, have a extreme and widespread impact on world environments – based mostly on CO2 emissions, e-waste and general consumptions of sources per capita – and in addition rank low general on making a wholesome atmosphere for children inside their borders.
In distinction, the least rich OECD and EU countries in Latin America and Europe have a a lot decrease impact on the broader world.
“Not only are the majority of rich countries failing to provide healthy environments for children within their borders, they are also contributing to the destruction of children’s environments in other parts of the world,” mentioned Gunilla Olsson, Director of UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti. “In some cases we are seeing countries providing relatively healthy environments for children at home while being among the top contributors to pollutants that are destroying children’s environments abroad.”
“We owe it to ourselves and to future generations to create better places and spaces for children to thrive,” mentioned Olsson. “Mounting waste, harmful pollutants and exhausted natural resources are taking a toll on our children’s physical and mental health and threatening our planet’s sustainability. We must pursue policies and practices that safeguard the natural environment upon which children and young people depend the most.”