Many wealthy countries are failing to provide children with a healthy environment, according to the U.N. children's agency Unicef.
"In many areas, we are living at the expense of today's children and future generations," Unicef Germany Executive Director Christian Schneider said Tuesday. He said a Unicef report shows "that even in prosperous countries, children are growing up in conditions that make them sick, impair their development and limit their life chances."
Unicef's Innocenti Research Center studied 39 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union (EU) to determine how well they are doing in creating healthy, child-friendly environments and ensuring intact environments within and beyond their borders.
Indicators examined include air pollution, pesticide exposure and lead concentration in children's blood, countries' contribution to climate change, resource consumption and e-waste production.
Spain, Ireland and Portugal top the international country rankings. "These three countries, by comparison, provide a good environment for children living there and contribute less to global environmental problems," Unicef said.
Australia, Belgium, Canada and the United States fare comparatively poorly. Measured in terms of CO2 emissions, e-waste production and total resource consumption per capita, they have "serious and far-reaching impacts on the global environment," the organization said. At the same time, they have failed to provide a healthy environment for children in their own countries. By comparison, less affluent countries in Latin America and Europe have a much smaller impact on the overall state of the planet, the organization said.
"The majority of wealthy countries fail to create a healthy environment for all children within their borders and also contribute to the destruction of children's habitats in other parts of the world," said Innocenti Director Gunilla Olsson. "In some cases, we find that countries that create relatively healthy environments for children in their own countries are at the same time among the biggest polluters of pollutants that destroy children's environments in other countries."
Unicef called on countries worldwide to reduce waste production and air and water pollution.
