STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Climate change will spur cascading risks to children in the coming decades as a warming planet stunts learning, threatens physical health and upends housing security, a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report found.
The agency’s 108-page peer-reviewed report, “Climate Change and Children’s Health and Well-Being in the United States,” analyzed a range of futures American children may have to face by the end of the century.
It is the latest research to analyze how climate change will fundamentally alter everyday life and create profound, tangible impacts for people under the most severe warming scenarios.
“Understanding health risks to children is critical for developing effective and equitable strategies that will protect our current and future generations,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan in a release. “Today’s report will help further efforts being taken by the Biden Administration across the Federal government to address the climate crisis and advance environmental justice.”
EPA researchers assessed the effect 2 degrees Celsius and 4 degrees Celsius of warming (equivalent to 3.6 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to a baseline period between 1986 and 2005 on five primary factors — learning, air quality, pollen, flooding and disease.
The futures outlined under those two possibilities are only possible under paths where human greenhouse gas emissions are higher than current goals. Climate models predict those thresholds could be reached by the years 2056 and 2097.
Climate change is expected to exacerbate existing inequities in children’s health by widening gaps in institutional, healthcare, historical and social institutions, researchers said. The report is meant to serve as a resource to President Joe Biden’s administration to confront environmental justice and climate issues.
“Children are experiencing the impacts of climate change from negative health outcomes impacting their physical and mental…
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