The New England Journal of Medicine has published a comprehensive review of the science to-date and concluded that the effects of burning fossil fuels - things like air pollution, severe weather, poor water quality and extreme heat - pose a significant and growing risk to the health of babies and children.
Frederica Perera, lead author of the review and the founding director of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health at Columbia University, said the purpose of the study was to not only show the link between the planet's heavy reliance on fossil fuels and children's health, but to also point out the available solutions that could prevent climate change-fueled disasters from putting the world's youngest people at risk.
Climate change
"We've been seeing this whole range of [climate] effects that are sending children to the ER, and the list goes on, so I decided to put it all together," Perera told CNN.
"In a way, this is bad news, but look, we know how to deal with this. We know how to bring down emissions. We can take action now to make a huge difference, and that was the purpose of the article."
Although the paper outlines several extreme climate events including flooding as well as air pollution, researchers say that heat remains the deadliest of all natural disasters in the US and that it poses a unique response situation.
Heat-related symptoms
Because the impacts of heat can go unnoticed, Perera said it's easy for parents or adult guardians - who have the ability to regulate their body temperatures better than kids - to overlook some symptoms when a child is suffering some heat-related condition.