How Climate Policy Can Be Integrated Into Violence Prevention

The dual goals of climate action and ending violence against children can be achieved according to a new paper by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. For the first time, governments are committing funds and making concrete pledges to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goal target of ending violence against children. On November 7 and 8, the Government of Colombia, with support of the Government of Sweden, UNICEF, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children, and the World Health Organization, attended the first First Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children.

The new paper outlines how climate policy can be integrated into violence prevention and response which until now have not been linked as a framework for reaching the UN sustainable development targets for 2030. The findings are published in the Lancet Child and Adolescent Health.

“2024 marks a watershed moment in violence prevention. This convening has the potential to accelerate proven solutions towards ending all forms of violence against children (VAC) by 2030. However, achieving the goal will require synergies with the climate agenda,” says Ilan Cerna-Turoff, PhD, in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School.

The authors make the point that rising temperatures and intensifying extreme weather can increase the risk of violence by collapsing state and interpersonal protection systems; changing socio-behavioral norms; increasing stress and negative coping; and exacerbating mental health conditions. Regions that are highly sensitive to climate change also have the highest prevalence of violence and the largest percentage of children and adolescents under 18 years of age.

Cerna-Turoff outlines several proposals on how each national pledge to end violence might be extended to be climate-sensitive, in-line with the global frameworks, including:

• Building policies and enforcement structures to respond to violence during climate migration and displacement and during and after extreme weather;
• Integrating gender and age in the structuring of emergency facilities and housing;
• Increasing community safety by addressing violence hotspots during reconstruction efforts and climate-resilient infrastructure projects (eg., areas without street lighting and street traffic);
• Producing regional, national, and sub-national plans for equal service provision and reporting of violence during and after climate migration and displacement and extreme weather;
• Engaging parents and caregivers in emergency facilities and housing on parenting practices;
• Providing economic support for communities that experience economic loss and integrating gender-sensitive training into programming to support the equal education and protection of girls;
• Ensuring a climate lens is integrated into mental health, addiction treatment, job training, and other social services offered to adolescents;
• Considering mass/social media and education campaigns to change norms and reduce violence in communities receiving climate migrants and those displaced by climate change; and
• Providing alternative violence reporting structures during school closures and in areas without school access during and after extreme weather and climate migration and displacement.

“Integrating climate and violence policy is a wise investment,” says Cerna-Turoff. “Climate change will be costly for health systems, particularly in low- and middle-income countries which are most affected and have competing priorities for limited resources.”

For example, if warming remains below 20OC, climate mitigation investment will need to increase by at least six-fold in Southeast Asia and developing nations in the Pacific, five-fold in Africa, and fourteen-fold in the Middle East by 2030. Developing nations globally will require at least $127 billion per year to finance climate adaptation. These sums are exponentially higher than current spending.

He continues, “This is also an issue of structural violence. While high-income countries are driving the rise in temperatures, people in low- and middle-income countries are more affected. We can promote a society where all groups can benefit from better health and development, and no one is left behind.”

The paper’s co-author is Professor Karen Devries of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The study was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, grant K99ES035895.