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New Delhi, Nov 6 (PTI) Researchers have described measures that countries can take to ensure children’s health is accounted for while adapting to climate change in an article. The team, including researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College in the US and members of a technical advisory group to the World Health Organization, have identified 17 indicators that can measure child health in at least half the countries worldwide, they said in the commentary published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal. The indicators thus identified relate to childhood death rates, nutrition, vaccination coverage, among others, and are part of the UAE-Belém Work Programme, a two-year initiative launched at COP28 to develop metrics that measure progress in climate adaptation. The authors of the article are advocating for signatories to the Paris Agreement to adopt the 17 indicators at the 30th Conference of the Parties — or ‘COP30’ — where world leaders will gather during November 10 to November 21 and discuss how to measure a country’s progress towards climate adaptation. The Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, outlining strategies for limiting global warming to well below 2 degree Celsius. “Children have specific needs that often get overlooked. We’re making sure that doesn’t happen,” said lead author Ilan Cerna-Turoff, an assistant professor of epidemiology in emergency medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College. Increasing standardised measurement makes global child health data more readily available, which supports other targets, like the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals agenda of 2030, and opens up opportunities to analyse how climate change is influencing child health, Cerna-Turoff said. For example, combining communicable disease data with information about flooding or heat could reveal how weather conditions can impact health outcomes, the researcher said. “The health of children should be placed at the core of all policies leading to 2030. Standardised indicators are needed to track progress towards child health goals within climate adaptation,” the authors wrote. “At minimum, measurement should include disaggregation (detailed data collection of subgroups) by age. Indicators should capture information on relevant age groups and child demographics,” they said. The team added, “We encourage the UAE-Belém Work Programme to adopt all 17 indicators suggested for child health. The adoption of standardised indicators will ensure consistent monitoring over time in climate adaptation.” PTI KRS KRS KRS
