Children born today will bear the brunt of the burden of climate change despite having the least responsibility for causing it. Growing calls to position climate change as a child’s rights crisis are rooted in research on the unique physical and mental health impacts that high temperatures, poor air quality, and stress associated with living through natural disasters have on the most important developmental years in a person’s life.

Mitigating existing challenges and preventing harm to future generations will require collaborative policies and interventions that cut across climate science, early care and education, public health, and countless other disciplines. In a new paper, the Low Income Investment Fund and the Center for Cities and Schools at the University of California, Berkeley, make the case for explicit focus on and improvements to the physical settings where young children spend their time.

LIIF and the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley’s new paper explores climate vulnerabilities facing the child care sector and recommendations to plan for and address the consequences of increasingly harsh weather patterns. “Many homes and early care and education facilities are largely unequipped to withstand the impacts of a worsening climate.”