A UNICEF report pointed out that 40 million girls and boys in Brazil are already exposed to more than one climate and environmental risk.
The document brings the impacts of the climate crisis on guaranteeing the rights of future generations.
In an interview with CNN Radio UNICEF Brasil monitoring and evaluation officer Danilo Moura stated that there is a “violation of rights” for these young people.
“A number of situations are already a reality, such as changing patterns of drought and rain, frequency and intensity of heat, lack of water, floods, air pollution”, he listed.
All of this, he said, “affects access to health care, education, as well as the right of children to be protected from violence and poverty.”
Danilo highlights that the most vulnerable are more exposed to risk.
“Indigenous people, quilombolas, riverine populations, whose lifestyle and the community where they live are already threatened by environmental degradation.”
The poorest children “are those who live in big cities with the worst air quality”, in addition to those who depend on family farming and who suffer from the impact of the climate.
Vulnerability “impacts differently on young people and adolescents, who are the least responsible for the climate crisis and emissions, but who are already experiencing the consequences and will have to deal with them for longer.”
The most important thing, for the UNICEF representative, is to put young people “at the center of the discussion, to ensure that they will be heard”: “They are the most mobilized group in environmentalism.”
“So we need to think about how we guarantee schools, health care, access to water, how to guarantee maintenance in a country where the patterns of rain and drought are changing so much.”
Danilo Moura argues that the most important thing is that all countries meet the goals of the Paris Agreement to walk the path of zero emissions.
*With production by Isabel Campos
Source: CNN Brasil
