Climate Change and Environment
For Every Child, A Liveable Planet
South Asia is a prominent climate hotspot despite contributing only 8 per cent of global carbon emissions. Home to over a staggering 625 million children and the highest cohort of young people, the region bears a disproportionate burden of climate effects. With the highest youth population, the future of South Asia and its children hangs in a delicate balance as they endure the harshest consequences of climate change.
UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Index report revealed children in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan are at extremely high risk of the adverse impact of climate change. In the island country of Maldives, rising sea levels threaten to erase entire communities. A concerning 76 per cent of children in the region struggle with soaring temperatures and endure dangerous levels of air pollution. Moreover, almost 350 million children are facing severe water scarcity, forcing them to drink contaminated water or go thirsty. According to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, these disasters could cost an estimated $160 billion per year by 2030, pushing more children and families into a vicious cycle of poverty lasting for generations.
This places their health, education and their very futures at risk.
In 2022 alone, over 15 million girls and boys in South Asia needed humanitarian assistance due to flooding caused by climate change. Climate change now threatens to reverse the hard-earned progress in improving children’s wellbeing and presents a challenge to their rights. Climate change's repercussions extend to critical services such as water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), healthcare, food security, nutrition, and education for children in the region. The region’s vulnerability to climate change has worsened due to environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, and pollution.
Opportunity
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child calls for a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a fundamental human right. More recently, governments have now committed to safeguarding this right for children as outlined in the General Comment No. 26 (2023) on Children’s Rights and the Environment with a special focus on climate change.
Prioritising the voices, rights and needs of children and youth in climate action is pivotal towards taking tangible gains to address the escalating climate crisis.
This is why UNICEF actively champions the rights of children and recognizes the importance of integrating their perspectives into decision-making processes related to climate and environment.
Moreover, UNICEF recognises that we cannot work in isolation. To ensure tangible advances in climate action, we must forge global and regional partnerships that meaningfully leverage the unique strengths of individuals, communities, organizations, governments and businesses.
UNICEF enhances vital social services for children and communities, so that they can withstand the impacts of climate change, including floods and extreme temperatures. This involves strategic investments in climate-resilient infrastructure, technologies, and practices.
What UNICEF is doing
UNICEF has laid out a comprehensive Sustainability and Climate Change Action Plan . Central to this action plan is the call “to galvanize a global commitment to ensure a sustainable world and to protect the most vulnerable children from the worst impacts of climate change so that every child has an opportunity to survive, grow, and thrive.”
Programming priorities:
- Climate-informed risk reduction, humanitarian action and resilient recovery from disasters
- Sustainable energy for health-care facilities, schools and WASH
- Sustainable WASH services in areas most vulnerable to climate change
- Pathways for young people to be more effective champions for sustainability
- Young lungs – Addressing clean air for children
In South Asia, UNICEF is actively championing children's rights amid climate change challenges. Our efforts include advocating for child rights in climate policies and programmes. Across the region, we focus on building resilience in vulnerable communities, empowering and engaging children and young people to be champions for climate action and environmental sustainability.
Climate-informed risk reduction, humanitarian action and resilient recovery from disaster
UNICEF is constantly adapting its disaster reduction and relief efforts to the changing weather extremities, focusing on preventing new risks, reducing existing ones, and enhancing community readiness.
In Bangladesh, the Today and Tomorrow initiative - a UNICEF joint initiative, provides risk insurance covering climate disasters such as cyclones, with an explicit focus on children. The initiative also provides technical assistance and resources (including climate and DRR policy support) for preventing and reducing climate risks and building resilience.
In Nepal, we are supporting government to enhance disaster management capacities of children and educators through comprehensive school safety programme across various provinces. Moving forward, we are incorporating climate change adaptation and mitigation measures into the programme and integrating it into local education plans.
Sustainable energy for healthcare facilities, schools, and WASH
UNICEF recognizes the - crucial connection between equitable access to energy and child rights. By deploying off-grid solar solutions in essential social services, we increased access to energy and helped to effectively deliver health, education and WASH services for the most vulnerable children.
In India, UNICEF has supported the development of the National Programme on Climate Change and Human Health. We collaborated with the Government to install solar panels in tribal Primary Health Centres in Maharashtra where 240,000 children have received essential newborn care facilities and access to vaccinations each year. Further, in partnership with National Institute of Solar Energy, we have solarized 70 healthcare facilities in four states to improve equitable access to health services, especially for children and mothers.
Similarly, in Pakistan UNICEF is supporting the design and installation of approximately 1MW solar panels across district hospitals. These solar panels will aid oxygen generation and power vital medical services such as special baby care units.
Sustainable WASH services in areas most vulnerable to climate change
Safe and equitable WASH services are vital for children's survival and physical growth. UNICEF provides support to enhance access to clean and safe WASH services that can withstand extreme climate events and are operational during disasters.
In Sri Lanka, we are working with the government to enhance the climate resilience of WASH services. The programme funded by Green Climate Fund aims to equip the WASH sector with the necessary policies and capacities to identify climate risks and address the sector's vulnerability to climate change.
In Pakistan we are supporting the Government in developing the "Sustainable Actions for Ecosystems Restoration (SAFER Pakistan)" project. The project will mobilize US$ 10 million to improve access to safe water and build resilience and protect families from climate disasters in Pakistan’s Indus basin.
Pathways for young people to be effective champions for sustainability
UNICEF recognises that young people have a critical role to play in the transition to a more sustainable future. We empower children and young people with developmental opportunities, education, and skills.
In India, we have collaborated with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and NITI Aayog to develop Meri LiFE - a digital innovation platform to support Government of India’s Mission LiFE Campaign. The campaign supports young people to hone their green skills, climate sensitivity and leadership.
We are also supporting the GenU imagen Ventures Youth Challenge in Bangladesh and Pakistan which supports youth with seed funds and dedicated mentorship from industry experts to innovate solutions and address climate change.
In the Maldives, we are building a cohort of Youth Climate Guardians by empowering young people to advocate for climate policies, and monitor climate actions including COP agreements.
We regularly support governments in working with youth in the lead up to the climate COP. This includes supporting young people to develop their climate negotiation skills, share voices and promote actions through programmes such as Youth Track to COP28 in the Maldives and COP in my city in Pakistan.
Young Lungs – addressing clean air for children
UNICEF advocates clean air quality for better child health and prioritizes safeguarding vulnerable children from the harshest consequences of environmental pollution. We support evidence-based advocacy, concrete solutions, and awareness at the national and local levels.
In Nepal, UNICEF is collaborating with local governments in the Ecozone programme to distribute 10,000 clean cookstoves in marginalized communities across six municipalities of Karnali and Sudurpaschim provinces. This initiative helps safeguard the health of women and children who are constantly exposed to indoor smoke from traditional wood-burning kitchen stoves.