YK Poudel

Climate action for the next generation is urgently needed. On March 23, the UN Development Programme introduced “Weather Kids” to promote climate action.

The Weather Kids programme will air on news channels in over 80 countries worldwide.

The TV segment cautions viewers about the ongoing rise in temperatures, which will continue to bring the catastrophic impacts of climate change already being felt by people and the global economy.

One of the anchors said that these impacts are projected to affect 94 percent of the world’s children, posing threats to food security, and potentially leading to a high increase in taxpayers’ bills globally, amounting to trillions of US Dollars.

“Rising heat has led to the closure of schools, wildfires are engulfing towns, and floods are saturating everything, making conditions unpleasant and hazardous,” he said.

The forecast concludes with a plea from the children: “It’s not just a weather report to us. It is our future.” Viewers are urged to sign a pledge committing to take action.

This includes making financial decisions that support sustainability and educating themselves about climate solutions and global climate action.

Achim Steiner, the UNDP Administrator, said, “Weather Kids” adds a compelling voice to raise awareness about a future that will inevitably unfold if meaningful climate action is not taken by humanity.

“Persistent inaction on climate change would result in a planet that becomes progressively uninhabitable for both the current generation of children and future generations,” Achim Steiner said.

He stressed on the need for decarbonising economies and promoting access to affordable and clean energy for all are essential steps.

The Weather Kids campaign is a part of the UNDP’s initiatives aimed at improving public discourse and mobilizing action on climate change, leading up to the COP30 climate negotiations scheduled to take place in Brazil in 2025.

COP30 will commemorate the ten-year milestone of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and represents a pivotal opportunity to steer the world toward a trajectory consistent with limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

During this event, countries will submit a new set of climate actions and goals, known as ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDCs).

These NDCs are central to the global effort to combat climate change, serving as the cornerstone of collective action.

The newly established UNDP Climate Hub delivers the UN System’s largest portfolio of support on climate action in nearly 150 countries.

Designed to emulate weather reports television viewers see every day, the projected forecasts were developed using data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and UNDP’s Human Climate Horizons data platform.

The campaign was created in partnership with the World Meteorological Organization and The Weather Channel.