Sir, – Speaking at Cop29 in Azerbaijan earlier this week, UN Secretary General António Guterres highlighted the fact that there are “children going to bed hungry as droughts ravage crops” and that “decimated harvests push up food prices – everywhere” (”Disasters being supercharged by man-made climate change with no country spared, UN chief tells Cop29″, World, November 12th).
At World Vision we are acutely aware of the impact of climate change on child hunger across the world and particularly in the Small Island Development States (SIDS) in the Pacific. Children of the Pacific SIDS face high levels of undernutrition, with stunting of up to 47 per cent of children under five. This is compounded by the fact that Pacific Islands are also among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
To understand the impacts of climate change on child hunger from the perspective of children this year, we spoke to almost 1,000 children and young people in four Pacific Islands, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea. Their answers give a clear indication as to why the world needs to act faster and with greater ambition in response to the climate crisis. In Timor Leste, 42 per cent of children reported less access to food as a result of climate change. And a staggering 53 per cent of children in Vanuatu reported seeing changes in the coastline in their lifetime. These words from a 14-year-old boy, in Solomon Islands sum up how children feel: “I am afraid of the future because if the flooding continues, we will not have enough land for our gardens.”
However, children in the Pacific SIDS are not asking Ireland and other rich nations, to use a well-used trope about Irish agriculture, to feed the world. In fact, they are asking Ireland and other developed nations to cop on and take action to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 Celsius. Above which the very existence of their islands is put at risk.
We must see much more urgency at Cop29 and in reality, much more urgency at a national level between annual conferences to reduce our carbon emissions and have more ambitious climate action. As the UN Secretary General reminded those attending Cop29, climate action is not optional, it’s an imperative. – Yours, etc,
MAURICE SADLIER,
Programmes and Policy Director,
World Vision Ireland,
Dublin 6.