Why this matters
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has declared the climate crisis “the greatest intergenerational injustice of our time.”
Across our region and around the world, children, girls, and young people are living this crisis every day — breathing smoke, wading through floods, watching crops fail, and missing school. For them, the climate emergency isn’t a distant threat. It’s a lived reality.
In the Pacific, where more than half the population is under 35, rising seas, intensifying storms, and climate-driven displacement threaten not just livelihoods, but entire futures.
Yet young people are leading with ...
Why this matters
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has declared the climate crisis “the greatest intergenerational injustice of our time.”
Across our region and around the world, children, girls, and young people are living this crisis every day — breathing smoke, wading through floods, watching crops fail, and missing school. For them, the climate emergency isn’t a distant threat. It’s a lived reality.
In the Pacific, where more than half the population is under 35, rising seas, intensifying storms, and climate-driven displacement threaten not just livelihoods, but entire futures.
Yet young people are leading with courage and vision — from Pacific students who made history at the International Court of Justice, to girls driving change in their own communities. But too often, their voices are still missing from the decisions that will shape their lives.
Australia can change that.
The world our children face today is hotter, more dangerous, and less stable than the one we knew. The climate crisis is rewriting childhood.
In the Pacific, the stakes could not be higher. Research by Plan International Australia and the Kiribati Climate Action Network shows the devastating impacts on girls: half said climate disasters have kept them from school, a third said there’s less food to eat, and nearly half struggle to find clean water.