The Early Years Climate Action Task Force

06/22/2023

The Early Years Climate Action Task Force

Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling.
Greta Thunberg, youth climate activist

The Early Years Climate Action Task Force is currently drafting the U.S. Early Years Climate Action Plan, to recommend ways the country can help young children, zero to 8, flourish in the face of climate change, to be published in late 2023, according to co-conveners Capita and This Is Planet Ed, who explain:

The effects of climate change can be particularly harmful to young children’s health, development, and school readiness. Extreme weather events, increasing air pollution, eco-anxiety, and toxic stress threaten the future of childhood. The early years ecosystem is vast, complex, and fragmented, existing in childcare centers, family homes, and the pediatric healthcare system. Yet little attention has been paid within the U.S. to this intersection of climate change and childhood.

To dive deeper into the issue, explore the task force's six public listening sessions, in which panelists offer examples, priorities, and possibilities to address the issues above, including how early childhood centers might operate as hubs of resilience by offering efficient, green, healthy spaces, connecting with community events and partners focused on addressing climate change.

Relatedly, an emerging group within the World Forum Foundation on Early Care and Education is now strategizing ways to integrate deeper engagement with the interrelated threads of climate change, sustainable development and early childhood and cross-sectoral collaboration into the vibrant discussions at the 2024 World Forum on Early Care and Education. Email [email protected] if you plan on joining the World Forum in Vancouver, Canada, next April and would like to help shape this topic.

Reminder: International Mud Day is just one week away! Enjoy the mud any way you wish, and share your plans, stories and photos with the hashtag #wfmudday so we can follow along!

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