Half of world’s children exposed to at least three climate hazards, Unicef says
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- Unicef's Children's Climate Risk Report found that half the world's children — over 1 billion — face at least three overlapping climate hazards at once, with 123,000 exposed to more than six such threats in their lifetimes.
- Unicef executive director Catherine Russell said children's lives are "upended" by heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, and floods, and called on governments and businesses to cut emissions and invest in child-focused climate adaptation.
- Papua New Guinea's Rigo district illustrates the human stakes: 15-year-old Lorna must swim a crocodile-filled river to reach school after a footbridge washed away in 2012 and was never replaced, according to her headteacher Charlie Vali David.
- The Sahel region of Africa ranks among the hardest-hit globally, with more than 4 million children facing the triple threat of heatwaves, extreme heat, and sand and dust storms.
- Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Pakistan top the list for most climate hazards per child, while high-income countries are not immune — more than 6 million children in Italy alone face prolonged heatwaves and drought.
- Unicef's analysis covered eight hazards — coastal floods, droughts, extreme heat, fires, heatwaves, river floods, sand and dust storms, and tropical storms — finding that almost every child worldwide now faces at least one.
Why it matters: For governments and businesses, the report reframes climate adaptation as a child-protection imperative: 1 billion children already live with the fallout of inadequate infrastructure — washed-out bridges, unsafe schools, failed services. The Sahel, South Asia, and even wealthy Italy show no region is insulated, making child-focused adaptation spending a universal rather than regional need.
