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.
Recounting her ordeal, a second-semester law student of Vidyodaya Law college, Jyothi.K., said that ABVP workers did not allow her to get into a autorickshaw and they even threatened the driver that the vehicle would be burned if he allowed her to sit in the vehicle.
Comments
I'm a Gujrati Brahmin settled in Bangalore. I come from a family which has been in the RSS for three generations. Being from RSS, I and my family were big supporters of the Modi Government when it came to power in the early 2000. We are middle class people, my father being the owner of a small printing press in Amdbd. We had Muslim employees working in the press. All of them were killed in 2002. This openned my father's and my eyes to the reality of BJP, RSS and Modi. My father winded up the business and by 2004 we quit Gujarat and settled in Bangalore. RSS is the most fascist organization in India. BJP is the most corrupt party. Gujrat model is nothing but a web of lies corruption and photoshop. Forget Hindus, Modi will harm the business class too. Modi only works for a few selected business houses rest all should fend for themselves. Living in the considerably freee and cosmopolitan environs of Bangalore I've realized that there is no progress if it is limited to a caste, a religious majority or minority or any other group. Progress has to be for all. RSS and its cronies will not last long. Country is getting sick and tired of their threats and abuses. Their inciting of riots at the drop of a hat. Woe to them when the 80% of the population take a leaf out of their book and hunt them down like dogs that they are.
@ SUNIL RAO
FRIST NEED TO CLARIFY IS BHARATH IS MATHA OR PITHA MALE OR FEMALE ....
THEN WE WIL DECIDE WHAT TO DO KILL HER OR SEND HER
RSS STARTED TO ATTACK THE GRILS ALSO THEY HAVE VERY GOOD REASON SLOGAN PAKISTAN ZINDABAD,
FILE CRIMINAL CASE OR BAN RSS
Typical Sanghi behaviour. It will be absurd if people think that the justice will be done to that girl. In any case, Doomsday for VHP and its allies is coming soon...
and #ModiLovesKarachiBiryani.
India Zindabad, Pakistan Zindabad, And whole world Zindabad
What is the problem in wishing everybody's welfare.
Are we loosing anything. Should we be jealous in others prosperity.
Narrow minded never develop nor allow others to develop.
First govt should ban ABVP kind, this group is really threat to our society.
These are Anti nationals who always will take law in hands ....and claim to be the protectors of LAW....only way is to shake the base....that is RSS
this abvp people dont have any work if she want to call anything let her call it is her karma of death, why are we simply Popularizing such a kind.
Pakistan Zinadabad, I am not saying this one your own swami, sri sri...something like that said...go and beat him too if you have guts...
Bharath Mata Ki Jai, Kill her she must not be allowed to enter india.
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