Kate Hampton and Linda Weisert

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THE RIGHTS
OF CHILDREN
TO A CLIMATE
SAFE FUTURE

By Kate Hampton, CEO and Linda Weisert,
Global Director, Gender, Equity & Youth,
Children’s Investment Fund Foundation

Credit: iStock.com/junce

The Children's Investment Fund Foundation is the largest of its kind in the world with a mission to improve children’s lives. That means we work across our active portfolio of grant-making – which currently sits at over $2 billion – to tackle the systemic issues affecting child health and development, girls’ education and empowerment, sexual reproductive health and rights, and child protection. It also means we work on climate change. In fact, our mission would be impossible to achieve without addressing the climate crisis.

Half of all grantmaking we do is focused on climate because we know it is the single most intersectional challenge of our time. You simply cannot think about transforming the lives of children and young people around the world without thinking about the impact of the climate crisis today, and in the future.

The issues are complex and fraught, but not without hope.”

If we do not successfully take urgent action on fossil fuels, for example, not only will we miss out on the growth and prosperity benefits of green industrialisation, nine out of ten children in the world will continue to breathe unsafe air.

If we do not radically reverse the emissions trend driving increasingly extreme weather events, we will see rising damage to communities and livelihoods. More and more children will be displaced, will go without schooling, and without the basic nutrition necessary for them to grow and prosper.

It is often girls who are affected most. When a drought hits, and then when drought becomes the norm, girls not only have to travel further to collect water but they may also be married far too early as their families fail to cope with the hardship and poverty caused by the new climate reality.

And if we do not recognise the moral power of young climate activists, many of them young women, we will not be able to support them and take responsibility as adult allies to put power in their hands and ensure local and global solutions truly work for them.

Credit: iStock.com/Vlad Karavaevv

we’re joining Project Dandelion in calling for an urgent escalation in our collective efforts.”

At the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, we are working to deliver progress on all of these issues.

We are working at the system level, supporting partners to restructure the global finance architecture so that climate and development decisions are made by those most affected and finance flows to those who need it most. This work is shaping the economy of the future, too – one based on long-term investment for growth and prosperity, and meaningful, green jobs. It is critical we prioritize women and girls in this work.

We’re working from our offices around the world to support vanguard countries and cities to lead the way in the global transition, and build resilience in the face of climate shocks, particularly in the agricultural sector.

And we’re supporting countries to realise their gender dividend – through integrated investments focused on supporting girls and young women to access quality healthcare and complete secondary education, and to acquire meaningful employment, in a climate-positive world.

On top of all this, we’re joining Project Dandelion in calling for an urgent escalation in our collective efforts. Whilst we have made huge progress, there’s so much more to do to combat the climate crisis and its intersectionalities. The issues are complex and fraught, but not without hope. We need to coalesce the necessary power and agency to deliver against the commitments made and find a way to greater speed and scale.

The CIFF team stands ready to work with all of you.

Credit: iStock.com/Debarchan Chatterjee

You simply cannot think about transforming the lives of children and young people around the world without thinking about the impact of the climate crisis.”

THE CLIMATE
CRISIS IS UNFAIR
TO WOMEN
AND GIRLS

Mary Robinson