A new report has revealed that no single country in the world successfully performs well on both environmental education and wellness of children.
Countries are failing in terms of sustainability, environmental education and the health of children when taken together, with climate change and ecological education threatening the wellbeing of future generations.
This comes from a new study released by Earth Warriors, an early-years environmental curriculum provider. It analysed data from a WHO-UNICEF-Lancet report from February 2020 alongside environmental education and curriculums the world over.
The study revealed a clear disparity between high-, middle- and low-income countries in their rankings on the Child Flourishing Index and sustainability. While wealthy countries see children given a better start to life in terms of health and development, their carbon emissions are a major issue.
No single country performs well on all three measures of child flourishing, sustainability and equity. The report also found that Italy is the only country in the world to include both climate change and sustainable development in its national curriculum.
When comparing the Child Flourishing Index with the per capita carbon emissions, the results showed a marked difference between the two. Norway, which topped the Child Flourishing Index, dropped to 156th when it came to sustainability. On the flip side, Burundi ranked 156th on the Child Flourishing Index but is first on the list of the most sustainable countries with only 0.05 tonnes of carbon emissions per capita.
Qatar was the lowest on the sustainability list with 49.12 tonnes of CO2 emitted per capita, but ranked 54th for the child wellness. In line with the trend, none of the top ten countries for child flourshing made it into the top ten for environmental sustainability. However, five of the bottom ten child flourishing nations did make it into the top 10 for eco-friendliness, all of which were from Africa: Mali, Niger, Somalia, Chad and the Central African Republic.
