Children and the Climate Migration Crisis

This is an absolute must read for anyone concerned about the climate crisis and its effects on children’s lives. Not only does it provide the information and resources desperately needed by those supporting children in forced climate migration situations, it serves as a critical call to action for building better approaches to climate resilience and education in emergencies.

Through this book, [Cardarelli and Pomper] explore the pressing issue of how climate crises affect children. By combining contextual information, real-life examples, and the intersection of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and trauma-sensitive strategies, the book emphasizes the importance of climate education. The authors emphasize the need for active participation and policy development to protect children's well-being in the face of climate-related challenges.

[This] book is a critical call to action for all stakeholders, especially policy makers, to address fundamental gaps in climate action. The trauma of forced migration and displacement of children, families, and communities can destroy life and entire societies. It is prudent for policy makers, decision-makers, and global citizens to care and learn about the social and emotional learning and mental and physical wellbeing of humans impacted by climate change through the valuable lessons shared in this book.

Detachment is said to be essential to scholarship, but there are subjects where research and the framing of possibilities are enhanced by unhidden emotional involvement and unconcealed anger. This is a volume that vindicates that truth. As it attests, the trauma of children forced to migrate because of climate can no longer be destroyed. But it can be minimized, through actions that are realistic leading to solutions that are enduring. Like the rosebud slowly emerging from a thicket of thorns, it offers a hope that can be realized.

Children are our future. Everything happening to our world today impacts their lives tomorrow – and today. Children are also some of the most vulnerable, and with growing climate change forcing people from their homes - whether due to drought, floods, rising sea levels, or collapsing food availability – the children did not create this, and we who did have a moral obligation to support them. They could be the inventors and entrepreneurs who create change and stabilise our world. But to do so they need support and education now. This book offers a roadmap for how we can – and must – offer today’s children the support and education they require for the world they are inheriting.

Climate migration is a pressing topic of discussion amongst policymakers and government agencies worldwide, and this book places children’s wellbeing at the forefront of these conversations. Providing a holistic approach on how to integrate social-emotional learning, trauma responsive training, and climate resilience education programs in real world settings, this book is truly a call to action for building better responses to climate migration.