Over-consumption in the world's richest countries is destroying children's environments globally

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The world’s richest countries – including Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands and Norway – are providing healthier environments for children within their borders, yet are disproportionately contributing to the destruction of the global environment

FLORENCE/NEW YORK, 24 May 2022 – The majority of wealthy countries are creating unhealthy, dangerous and noxious conditions for children across the world, according to the latest Report Card published today by UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti.

Innocenti Report Card 17: Places and Spaces compares how 39 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and European Union (EU) fare in providing healthy environments for children. The report features indicators such as exposure to harmful pollutants including toxic air, pesticides, damp and lead; access to light, green spaces and safe roads; and countries’ contributions to the climate crisis, consumption of resources, and the dumping of e-waste.

The report states that if everybody in the world consumed resources at the rate people do in OECD and EU countries, the equivalent of 3.3 earths would be needed to keep up with consumption levels. If everyone were to consume resources at the rate at which people in Canada, Luxembourg and the United States do, at least five earths would be needed.

While Spain, Ireland and Portugal feature at the top of the league table overall, all OECD and EU countries are failing to provide healthy environments for all children across all indicators. Some of the wealthiest countries, including Australia, Belgium, Canada and the United States, have a severe and widespread impact on global environments – based on CO2 emissions, e-waste and overall consumptions of resources per capita – and also rank low overall on creating a healthy environment for children within their borders. In contrast, the least wealthy OECD and EU countries in Latin America and Europe have a much lower impact on the wider world.

“Not only are the majority of rich countries failing to provide healthy environments for children within their borders, they are also contributing to the destruction of children’s environments in other parts of the world,” said Gunilla Olsson, Director of UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti. “In some cases we are seeing countries providing relatively healthy environments for children at home while being among the top contributors to pollutants that are destroying children’s environments abroad.”


Read more: https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/over-consumption-worlds-richest-countries-destroying-childrens-environments-globally

Innocenti Report Card 17: Places and Spaces: https://www.unicef-irc.org/places-and-spaces