India ranked 77th on a sustainability index that takes into account per capita carbon emissions and ability of children in a nation to live healthy lives and secures 131st spot on a flourishing ranking that measures the best chance at survival and well-being for children, according to a UN-backed report.
The report was released on Wednesday by a commission of over 40 child and adolescent health experts from around the world. It was commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO), UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and The Lancet medical journal.
In the report assessing the capacity of 180 countries to ensure that their youngsters can survive and thrive, India ranks 77th on the Sustainability Index and 131 on the Flourishing Index, it said.
Flourishing is the geometric mean of Surviving and Thriving. For Surviving, the authors selected maternal survival, survival in children younger than 5 years old, suicide, access to maternal and child health services, basic hygiene and sanitation, and lack of extreme poverty.
For Thriving, the domains were educational achievement, growth and nutrition, reproductive freedom, and protection from violence.
Under the Sustainability Index, the authors noted that promoting today's national conditions for children to survive and thrive must not come at the cost of eroding future global conditions for children's ability to flourish.
The Sustainability Index ranks countries on excess carbon emissions compared with the 2030 target. This provides a convenient and available proxy for a country's contribution to sustainability in future.
The report noted that under realistic assumptions about possible trajectories towards sustainable greenhouse gas emissions, models predict that global carbon emissions need to be reduced from 39·7 giga tonnes to 22·8 gigatonnes per year by 2030 to maintain even a 66 per cent chance of keeping global warming below 1·5°C.
It said that the world's survival depended on children being able to flourish, but no country is doing enough to give them a sustainable future.
"No country in the world is currently providing the conditions we need to support every child to grow up and have a healthy future," said Anthony Costello, Professor of Global Health and Sustainability at University College London, one of the lead authors of the report.
"Especially, they're under immediate threat from climate change and from commercial marketing, which has grown hugely in the last decade," said Costello – former WHO Director of Mother, Child and Adolescent health.
Norway leads the table for survival, health, education and nutrition rates - followed by South Korea and the Netherlands. Central African Republic, Chad and Somalia come at the bottom.
However, when taking into account per capita CO2 emissions, these top countries trail behind, with Norway 156th, the Republic of Korea 166th and the Netherlands 160th.
Each of the three emits 210 per cent more CO2 per capita than their 2030 target, the data shows, while the US, Australia, and Saudi Arabia are among the 10 worst emitters. The lowest emitters are Burundi, Chad and Somalia.
According to the report, the only countries on track to beat CO2 emission per capita targets by 2030, while also performing fairly – within the top 70 – on child flourishing measures are: Albania, Armenia, Grenada, Jordan, Moldova, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Uruguay and Vietnam.
"More than 2 billion people live in countries where development is hampered by humanitarian crises, conflicts, and natural disasters, problems increasingly linked with climate change," said Minister Awa Coll-Seck from Senegal, Co-Chair of the commission.
The report also highlights the distinct threat posed to children from harmful marketing.
Evidence suggests that children in some countries see as many as 30,000 advertisements on television alone in a single year, while youth exposure to vaping (e-cigarettes) advertisements increased by more than 250 per cent in the US over two years, reaching more than 24 million young people.
Studies in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and the US – among many others – have shown that self-regulation has not hampered commercial ability to advertise to children.
Children's exposure to commercial marketing of junk food and sugary beverages is associated with purchase of unhealthy foods and overweight and obesity, linking predatory marketing to the alarming rise in childhood obesity, it said.
The number of obese children and adolescents increased from 11 million in 1975 to 124 million in 2016 – an 11-fold increase, with dire individual and societal costs, the report said.
To protect children, the authors call for a new global movement driven by and for children.
Specific recommendations include stopping CO2 emissions with the utmost urgency, to ensure children have a future on this planet; placing children and adolescents at the centre of global efforts to achieve sustainable development, the report said.
New policies and investment in all sectors to work towards child health and rights; incorporating children's voices into policy decisions and tightening national regulation of harmful commercial marketing, supported by a new Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, it said.
Their relatives said they had received messages from them that they had reached their final destination — the Caliphate' that the IS projects to establish. They are suspected to have gone in groups via Dubai or Sri Lanka.
Comments
May be Bajarangdal terrorists kidnapped them
Helo dear friends,who is the real terorist? who did naga saki hirosima blast? who is the hitlor? (the father of RSS)who is the sadwi? (the mother of RSS) Isrel and jewis trying to spoil islam names.ISIS is born from isrel,Bopanna your name also telling you are real bopa and kotian you are the cancer of the socity you sould clean your heart other way your cancer will grou up and will impact brain....
UmmarSahil,
Explain how the Banu quraish were cheated by Mohammad
What is taqiiyya mean
Haha Mohammed ...sadhvi killed those guys who don't say bharath mata ki jai ..moreover she is just accused ..not culprit .. Haha...we don't give damn for the people killed who don't say Bharath mata ki jai...as viren and bopanna said 72 virgins + rape madodakke yazidi women sigthare antha hogirbahudu ...haha...anyways as a die hard nationalist ...we must say death to Islamic state ...death to jihadist forces ...death to kashmiri terrorists ....bholo Bharath mata ki ...hara hara modi ...long live Zionist regime ...
@ viren kotian & bopanna
dont talk nonsense if u dont know about quran ,
u people talk useless about islam & holy book.
first study about yourself and ur holy book then u blame on others.
bopanna and koti anna..if you are free, try to read holybook QURAN,
then you will come to know what is QURAN. Islam only spreads peace but some non muslims are converting to muslim just to spoil name of ISLAM- muslims.
Bopanna viranna by the way how is your Mother Prajnya Sadvi the bomb specialist and terrorst no.1 doing in the jail.
Those who go against India or killing Indians will follow Saadvini. Dont worry.
Until koran is there nothing can be done to help these muslim community. All that book teaches is violence and hatred for the Kuffar. Rape and pillage of innocents. Telling lies - Kittman, Taqiah etc etc. Zakir Naik will explain all this to any Muslims here who would not want to defned the quran.
I hope that all these young people who left India for ISIS quickly get a bullet through their empty Madrassa educated heads and quickly attain jannat where they will get 72 virgin sows waiting for them
The true followers of the religion of piece piece kabab finally reached their ultimate goal. Madrasa education konegoo saarthaka aayithu. 72 virgins are only one gun shot away for them. by the they what women will get??? what they have to do with 72 virgins???
I think they might have gone to relative home.
I think in future if children will not come to home on time may all say they joined iss
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