The Impact of Climate Change on Children and Young People

Highlights

The conference hopes to understand what climate change means to the community; what are the impacts large or small, and how does climate change affect children, young people, and the wider community? This forum looks to open a dialogue to discuss the actions that are being taken by the community, government, donors, civil society, and other key stakeholders. The conference would like to look towards the future, build on the actions of today to plan what measures need to be taken in order to mitigate the effects of climate change and its impact on the future of children and young people of Iraq. UNICEF aims to sustain the momentum of holding such events and build on the findings, challenges, and lessons learned for future cooperation and impact mitigation by working with local and international partners.

Key objectives:

1. Understand how Climate Change influences Iraq’s children and young people through sharing research, examples of real-world problems, solutions and lessons learned. The knowledge-sharing exercise will help inform UNICEF’s strategy for Children and Young People and help provide context for Iraq’s national Policy on development and implementation.
2. Advocate for improved understanding of the impact and actions needed to address climate change as it relates to children and young people and wider communities with focus on evidence for data availability, impact on children, and sustainability of resources for next generations.
3. Engage with students, universities, community stakeholders, civil society as ‘change agents’ for sustainable behavior change and actions in addressing climate change.