COP27: Lao Children voice their hunger for Climate Justice
From 6th to 18th November, world leaders gather in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, for COP27. This edition marks the 30th anniversary of adopting the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The International Non-Governmental Organisation (INGO) World Vision is actively participating in COP27, calling on leaders to listen to children as they tell how the climate crisis has affected their lives and communities and call for a global commitment to the 1.5-degree climate change goal. Given children are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, they and their future must be at the heart of leaders’ planning and decision-making.
In Lao PDR, some of the most vulnerable children supported by World Vision have addressed messages to the international decision-makers gathered in Egypt. In Soukhouma district, Champasack province, Miss Phine, 12 years old, and Mr. Nice, 11, were affected by the recent tropical storm Noru. Their families’ struggles are exacerbated by climate change, with more frequent natural disasters resulting in flooding and loss of livelihood. “We didn’t have food, and all the things in our house were damaged,” says Phine, to continue “I did not go to school because the water covered it.” Nice says, “the floods affected our community for five days, and it made our rice fields die. It makes it hard for my family every year to make ends meet”. Souksavanh, a 15-year-old teenage boy from Thapangthong district, Savannakhet province, shares the same observation: “the water covered our home garden and cut off the road. I would like the world to know how much my family struggled in the past years”.
Phine, Nice and Souksavanh, three children from Southern Laos affected by recent natural disasters, call out world leaders to take immediate action on climate change.
The climate crisis is affecting everyone, but girls and boys in the most vulnerable communities bear the brunt of the impacts despite being the least responsible for it. Nearly 1 billion children across the globe are now living in countries at extremely high risk of climate change and environmental hazards.
World Vision stresses the importance of putting children at the centre of the solution: “It is vital that leaders at COP27 hear the voices of children affected by climate change – and that they take action,” said Andrew Morley, President and CEO of World Vision International. The INGO believes that responding to climate change is a justice issue. Climate justice represents the interdependence of human rights, development, and climate action, an approach that places children at the centre of the climate crisis and brings about solutions that are good for people and the planet by upholding their rights.
In the past three years, the child-focused organisation has supported 100 rural communities to improve their capacities to cope with disasters and increase their preparedness when hazards arise. World Vision equally trained thirty of their staff to compose a National Disaster Management Team (NDMT) to intervene responsively during emergency response and humanitarian affairs. With its new strategy, World Vision also increases its focus on climate change, with new initiatives on climate smart agriculture to be launched in the coming months.
Operating in Lao PDR since 1991, World Vision works toward this call of hope, joy, and justice for all children to build a brighter future and create opportunities for them to reach their full potential.