Almost all children grow up exposed to climate hazards threatening their health, education, and survival, UNICEF warns. Published today, the Children’s Climate Risk Report maps the eight biggest threats worldwide: coastal and riverine floods, droughts, extreme heat, wildfires, heatwaves, and sand, dust and tropical storms.
The findings reveal that 83% of children are exposed to at least two hazards, while nearly half—1.1 billion children—face three or more. The report identifies a devastating triplet—extreme heat, drought, and heatwaves—as the most common multi-threat driving the crisis worldwide.
The UN agency also highlights that a relatively small, but extremely exposed group of 123,000 children faces seven or more simultaneous climate hazards, 46,000 of them in civil war-torn Myanmar. While flagging Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East as the most severe hot spots, the report concludes that children everywhere in the world remain profoundly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
