How climate change is affecting a nation of children
Tajikistan is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change. It’s also a country of young people. Here’s how current challenges are affecting them – and will continue to throughout their lives.
In Tajikistan, the second most mountainous country in the world, the challenges posed by climate change are immense. And they are impacting children and adolescents the hardest.
Nearly one in three people in Tajikistan are under 15 years of age, making it the country with the youngest – and fastest-growing – population in all of Europe and Central Asia. About a third of Tajikistan’s current population will likely live to nearly the end of the 21st century – and will endure the increasingly extreme heat, deadly disasters, water shortages and spikes in infectious disease that, in the absence of significant climate action, are predicted to worsen throughout this century.
But the children of Tajikistan are also facing climate consequences now. Like children everywhere, their bodies and brains are far more vulnerable to the hazards we already experience from climate change than adults. Children are more likely to get injured, sick, or die from climate-induced impacts such as infectious disease or heatwaves, for example. These consequences also threaten their physical and mental development.
That makes it especially concerning that Tajikistan is one of the top 20 most environmentally fragile countries in the world. The challenges children in Tajikistan are already experiencing are numerous:
- Children experience more floods, mudflows and earthquakes than any other Central Asian country.
- 1.7 million children regularly experience heatwaves, which can cause renal disease, respiratory illness and even death.
- Sand and dust storms, exacerbated by rising temperatures and aridity, are 10 times more common today than they were in the 1990s.
- Glaciers, a major source of Tajikistan’s drinking water, hydropower, and water for agriculture, are melting fast: the warming climate has destroyed 1,000 glaciers in the last 30 years alone.
- This glacial melting not only makes water shortages more common, but disasters such as avalanches and rockfalls, too. In 2022, Tajikistan recorded nearly twice as many disasters as in 2021.
Scientific modelling shows that this will all get worse, quickly, leaving today’s children to contend with a frightening future.
By the year 2080, a child born today will be only 56 years old; if they reach the country’s average life expectancy, they will still have another 20 years of life. Scientific modelling shows that when they are that age, the path that we are most likely to be on track for – called RCP 4.5 – would result in temperatures that are 2.8C higher, on average, than from 1986-2005.
They will also see far more frequent droughts. The kind of droughts that are severe enough that happen, right now, around one in 100 years will increase to around one in 15 years.
But nations taking stronger, more coordinated actions can decrease this risk. In a RCP 2.6 scenario, which would keep the global average temperature rise to 1C or less, Tajikistan temperatures would be 1.5C higher, not 2.8.
Immediate action needs to be taken to protect the youth of Tajikistan from the impacts of climate change. Without these initiatives, the challenges will increase, putting their health and safety at further risk and hindering their opportunities for development and well-being. National efforts to improve climate change risk management and disaster preparedness are essential.
As the 2024 UN Climate Change Conference (COP 29) convenes in November in Baku, Azerbaijan, UNICEF is calling on all Member States to uphold their agreement to respect, promote, and consider the rights of children, as well as intergenerational equity, when taking climate action. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child General Comment 26 also affirms that Member States must take action to uphold children’s right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
In particular, UNICEF calls on leaders to ensure that the COP29 Cover Decision responds to the unique and disproportionate impact of climate change on children, secure a dramatic increase in climate financing for children, guarantee that all new NDCs 3.0 are child sensitive and respond to the disproportionate impact of climate change on children, and empower children and young people to be present and meaningfully participate in climate decision-making.
