On the off chance you don’t have time to read the 594-page Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX), check out this simplified (and nicely designed, easy-to-skim) 28-page report called ‘Climate Extreme.’
Climate Extreme: How young people can respond to disasters in a changing world shares ways to prepare and reduce risks children and young people can face when disasters impact their communities and presents examples of crucial roles children have played in disaster preparedness, community education, hazard identification and in evacuation and first aid during disasters.
The report was authored by Amalia Fawcett from Plan Australia who says “Children and young people have the right to information that is tailored to them. Even complex scientific reports should be converted to child and youth appropriate versions, if the information is likely to affect them.”
Examples of young people having a real impact include:
- Young people lobbied their government to get their school moved out of the path of potential landslides in the Philippines.
- Girls and boys in Bangladesh have carried out household visits and community assemblies to share their skills and knowledge on early warning and household preparedness with others.
- A school safety program in India involves children in conducting risk and vulnerability assessments in over 2,000 schools.
- In Thailand youth are actively engaged in revising community based disaster risk management plans in flood affected areas.
- In Vietnam, children are training their peers on how climate change could affect their communities.
Climate Extreme is based on the report prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), featuring the extent to which climate change is affecting the number and severity of weather related disasters, investigating the current and predicted changes in our climate, how these affect disasters and what communities, governments and the international community can do to reduce risks people face.
Along with the IPCC report, Climate Extreme is being launched in New Delhi on May 3 and Bangkok on May 4.
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific body first established in 1988 by two United Nations organisations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and later endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly. Its mission is to provide comprehensive scientific assessments of current scientific, technical and socio-economic information worldwide about the risk of climate change caused by human activity, its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences, and possible options for adapting to these consequences or mitigating the effects. As such it produces regular reports, the latest of which, the ‘Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation.’
Children in a Changing Climate is a coalition of leading child-focused research, development and humanitarian organisations each with a commitment to share knowledge, coordinate activities and work with children as agents of change. Members of the coalition include UNICEF, World Vision, Plan International, Save the Children and Institute for Development Studies.
Australian Aid (the disaster response arm of AusAID) funded the production of the child-friendly version.
Download the full version of IPCC report.
Download the child-friendly version.
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