Children’s Vulnerability to Climate Risks
The Art
The Science
What’s Alarming
The UNICEF Children’s Climate Risk Index provides evidence of the vulnerability of children across the globe to various environmental hazards and stresses, such as heat waves, drought, river and coastal flooding, water scarcity, cyclones, vector-borne diseases and air and lead pollution.
“Children are more vulnerable to climate and environmental shocks than adults for a number of reasons:
· They are physically more vulnerable, and less able to withstand and survive shocks such as floods, droughts, severe weather and heatwaves.
· They are physiologically more vulnerable. Toxic substances, such as lead and other forms of pollution, affect children more than adults, even at lower doses of exposure.
· They are more at risk of death compared with adults from diseases that are likely to be exacerbated by climate change, such as malaria and dengue.
· They have their whole life ahead of them - any deprivation as a result of climate and environmental degradation at a young age can result in a lifetime of lost opportunity.”*
*The Climate Crisis is a Child Rights Crisis: Introducing the Children’s Climate Risk Index. New York: United Nations Children’s fund (UNICEF), 2021, Report, Executive Summary
