The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reports that one in three children worldwide – or 739 million – live in areas exposed to high or very high water scarcity, with climate change threatening to make things worse. According to a new UNICEF report released Monday, the double burden of dwindling water availability and inadequate drinking water and sanitation services is compounding the situation, putting 436 million children at even greater risk.
“The consequences of climate change are devastating for children,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“Their bodies and minds are uniquely vulnerable to polluted air, poor nutrition and extreme heat. Not only is their world changing – with water sources drying up and terrifying weather events becoming stronger and more frequent – so too is their well-being as climate change affects their mental and physical health. Children are demanding change, but their needs are far too often relegated to the sidelines.”
The report “The climate-changed child”, released ahead of the COP28 climate change summit, throws a spotlight on the threat to children as a result of water vulnerability, one of the ways in which the impacts of climate change are being felt. It provides an analysis of the impacts of three tiers of water security globally – water scarcity, water vulnerability, and water stress.
COP28, the twenty-eighth Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) summit, is coming up in the United Arab Emirates next month.
UNICEF’s analysis shows that the greatest share of children are exposed in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia regions — meaning they live in places with limited water resources and high levels of seasonal and interannual variability, groundwater table decline or drought risk.
The report also outlines the myriad of other ways in which children bear the brunt of the impacts of the climate crisis – including disease, air pollution, and extreme weather events such as floods and droughts.
UNICEF says 436 million are facing the double burden of high or very high water scarcity and low or very low drinking water service levels – known as extreme water vulnerability – leaving their lives, health, and well-being at risk. Extreme water vulnerability is one of the key drivers of deaths among children under five from preventable diseases.
The report shows that those most affected by extreme water vulnerability live in low- and middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Central and Southern Asia, and Eastern and South-Eastern Asia. Some of the most impacted countries include Niger, Jordan, Burkina Faso, Yemen, Chad, and Namibia.
At COP28, UNICEF is calling on world leaders and the international community to take critical steps with and for children to secure a viable planet, including elevating children within the final COP28 outcome document and convening an expert dialogue on children and climate change.
Beyond COP28, the UN agency is calling on parties to take action to protect the lives, health and well-being of children - including by “adapting essential social services, empower every child to be a champion for the environment, and fulfil international sustainability and climate change agreements including rapidly reducing emissions”.
“Children and young people have consistently made urgent calls for their voices to be heard on the climate crisis, but they have almost no formal role in climate policy and decision-making. They are rarely considered in existing climate adaptation, mitigation or finance plans and actions,” Russell said.
“It is our collective responsibility to put every child at the center of urgent global climate action.”
Further information
Full text: The climate-changed child, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), report, released November 13, 2023
https://www.unicef.org/media/147931/file/The%20climage-changed%20child%20-%20Report%20in%20English.pdf