Climate and Economic Inequality Crisis Toolkit This is a toolkit to engage public audiences around the climate and economic inequality crisis and to support the Generation Hope advocacy strategy for 2023

About this toolkit

This toolkit will help tell the story of incredible child campaigners, inform and engage our audiences around the climate crisis and economic inequality, and help advance advocacy goals in line with the Generation Hope Global Advocacy Strategy 2023.

We will continue to add new assets to this live toolkit so please keep checking back for the most up-to-date content and guidance.

The below is suggested guidance for using digital channels. The assets aim to amplify children's voices, inform and engage existing and new audiences, advance advocacy goals, and build bran familiarity. It also includes a climate hand raiser to help integrate the climate crisis as a root cause of hunger.

Contents

• Key moments
• Key messages
• Advocacy messages
• Amplify children's voices
• Children's climate stories
• Climate content collection

Key moments 2023

We have identified two key moments between now and the end of 2023 that we will be supporting to help further our advocacy goals. For each moment, we will be providing messaging, new content and social media guidance.

Overarching key messaging

Children are facing more extreme weather in an increasingly unequal world. Climate-related heatwaves, droughts and flooding destroy crops, livestock and livelihoods. Millions of children are facing a hunger crisis, the scale of which the world has never seen before.

World leaders have been too slow to make the systemic changes needed for sustainable development, to protect children and the planet. Those who have contributed the least to causing these crises are impacted the most. Children and their families are being pushed further into poverty, with the most vulnerable often being hit the hardest.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Children are speaking up and leading the way towards a better world and it’s time for us to follow their lead.

World leaders have an opportunity to put children first at two key global meetings this year – the SDG Summit in September and COP28 in November. Governments have made promises at meetings like this before – this time world leaders must turn those promises into action.

Together with children, we are calling on world leaders to make these meetings a turning point – and make the global financial system work for children, by investing in children. By putting their needs and rights first, we’ll tackle climate and inequality crises and guarantee a bright future for all children, everywhere. But we can’t do it without political will.

What are we calling for?

Children have had their lives devastated by crisis after crisis – and it’s not their fault.

But children everywhere are speaking up and holding leaders accountable. In 2022, we consulted with 58,000 children across 46 countries. They are calling on leaders to tackle the climate and inequality crisis by building fairer, greener societies.

Together with children, we are calling on decision-makers to create a financial system that works for them. The Sustainable Development Goals are our roadmap – they are our path out of the climate and inequality crisis, away from the pressures of increasingly frequent disasters and the consequences of hunger and conflict. World leaders must deliver on their promises to meet these goals and limit the impacts of the climate and inequality crisis on children globally.

Specifically, we are calling on leaders to unlock new financing and implement policies to:

• Invest in children by providing more and better funding for safety nets, essential services and policies that help children and ensure a healthy, more stable world where children can not only cope during tough times but also reach their full potential and thrive.
• Establish a Loss and Damage Fund and provide new and additional funding to be directed primarily to low-income countries experiencing loss and damages caused by the global climate crisis. Communities most affected by the climate crisis and experiencing inequality and discrimination should have access to enough money to rebuild and recover from the impacts of the climate crisis and invest in children.
• Make the global financing system work for everyone – where the wealthy pay a fair share and lower-income countries can get the financial support they need.

CHILDREN'S VOICES

In 2022, we consulted with 58,000 children in 46 countries. Many are campaigning in their communities and calling on leaders to listen to their ideas and experiences and to tackle the climate and inequality crisis by building fair, green, equal societies. Below is a collection of quotes from children around the world. Please use on your channels to amplify children's voices.

Advocacy messaging

Investing in Children

• Governments must deliver on their commitment to meet the Sustainable Development Goals by investing more and better in children’s rights to participate in decision-making, to health, education, nutrition, social protection, gender equality and freedom from violence through national budgets and international aid.
• Enough funding must be available to tackle current emergencies, like the global hunger and nutrition crisis, so communities are better prepared for climate shocks, and the food systems and essential services that children rely on are more resilient.
• Governments are running out of time to deliver on the promises they made to protect children’s futures and the planet under the Sustainable Development Goals. Promises alone are not enough, getting the world back on track requires urgent financing for implementation.

Establishing a Loss and Damage Fund and providing new and additional funding to address rapidly escalating loss and damage

• In climate vulnerable communities across the world, the irreversible impacts of the climate crisis are costing children their rights. Children growing up in low-and middle-income countries are on the frontlines of the climate crisis, bearing the brunt of the impact of loss and damage, and being pushed further into poverty. Governments are not acting on their demand for change.
• High-income countries that have contributed the most to the climate crisis must provide new and additional financing for low-income countries that are experiencing loss and damage.
• At COP27 leaders agreed a Loss and Damage Fund needs to be created, with meaningful participation from children in its design, to help those most impacted by climate change rebuild their lives and help their communities recover.
• This should also be funded in part from innovative and new sources such as taxes on companies that profit from the climate and inequality crisis (including taxing windfall profits of fossil fuel companies, in line with the Polluter Pays principle).
• The fund must support communities affected by climate disasters and slow-onset events, with an explicit focus on children’s rights, needs, voices and equity.

A Global Financing System that Works for All

• Low-income countries need access to financial support to rebuild from crises and adapt services and infrastructure against the impacts of climate change.
• Wealthy countries must pay their fair share in aid and make sure international systems for delivering assistance to countries at the front line of the climate and inequality crisis are optimised to deliver maximum impact for children.
• World leaders must strengthen global tax and debt systems and policies to ensure the wealthy pay a fair share and allow lower-income countries to invest in delivering the Sustainable Development Goals and safeguarding progress against climate shocks.

Children's climate stories

Warm up your audiences on the climate crisis by sharing the issues and impact and by telling their stories, in their words, of how the climate crisis is affecting their lives.

Suggested messaging: Meet the generation of children fighting climate change head on. Their creativity, resilience and ambitions are unbreakable, world leaders, take note!

Each child's story is included in the asset description in their Case Study folder on Content Hub and a social-ready summary is below.

2.4 BILLION REASONS REPORT

Climate change isn’t a threat to the future. For the world’s 2.4 billion children, it’s a global emergency today. The Generation Hope report sets out why this emergency is deeply connected to inequality – including compelling new evidence on the scale of the combined climate and inequality crisis.

For more information or support on anything in this toolkit please contact alana.maytum@savethechildren.org