The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) issued its first comprehensive analysis of climate risk from a child’s perspective, entitled The Climate Crisis Is a Child Rights Crisis: Introducing the Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI), on 20 August 2021. The report found 1 billion children – nearly half the world's 2.2 billion children – live in one of the 33 countries classified as “extremely high-risk”.
These children face a deadly combination of exposure to multiple climate and environmental shocks with a high vulnerability due to inadequate essential services, such as water and sanitation, healthcare and education.
The CCRI revealed:
•240 million children are highly exposed to coastal flooding;
•330 million children are highly exposed to riverine flooding;
•400 million children are highly exposed to cyclones;
•600 million children are highly exposed to vector borne diseases;
•815 million children are highly exposed to lead pollution;
•820 million children are highly exposed to heatwaves;
•920 million children are highly exposed to water scarcity;
•1 billion children are highly exposed to exceedingly high levels of air pollution
UNICEF has called on governments, businesses and relevant actors to:
1.Increase investment in climate adaptation and resilience in key services for children. To protect children, communities and the most vulnerable from the worst impacts of the already changing climate, critical services must be adapted, including water, sanitation and hygiene systems, health and education services.
2.Reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis, comprehensive and urgent action is required. Countries must cut their emissions by at least 45% (compared to 2010 levels) by 2030 to keep warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
3.Provide children with climate education and greens skills, critical for their adaptation to and preparation for the effects of climate change. Children and young people will face the full devastating consequences of the climate crisis and water insecurity, yet they are the least responsible. We have a duty to all young people and future generations.
4.Include young people in all national, regional and international climate negotiations and decisions, including at COP26. Children and young people must be included in all climate-related decision making.
5.Ensure the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is green, low-carbon and inclusive, so that the capacity of future generations to address and respond to the climate crisis is not compromised.
Retrieved from: https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/one-billion-children-extremely-high-risk-impacts-climate-crisis-unicef