Protecting children in
a changing climate
Climate change is endangering children and threatening their futures
Climate change threatens children’s most basic rights: to health, food, water, clean air, education and protection.
This isn’t a problem of the future, it’s a problem now.
Globally, drought and flooding are becoming more common and rising sea levels are impacting communities. Already, increasing numbers of extreme weather events are threatening children’s lives and destroying the clinics and schools that provide their healthcare and education. Every year, environmental risks take the lives of 1.7 million children under five.
Mozambique, 2019. Helcio holds Anderson as they take shelter in a living space for people displaced by Cyclone Idai. The cyclone caused widespread flooding, forcing thousands of people from their homes.
Unicef/De Wet
Help protect children from the effects of climate change
Donate now
600 million children – one in four worldwide – will be living in areas with extremely limited water resources by 2040
Protecting and empowering children in the face of climate change
Solving these problems is central to Unicef’s mission to realise the rights of every child – especially the most vulnerable. We respond rapidly to natural disasters, providing children with the care, supplies and protection that could save their lives. We are committed to providing a safe environment for every child to grow up in.
But children deserve more than protection – they need to be empowered to become the agents of future change. That’s why we’re providing communities with the tools to be more resilient to the effects of climate change, increasing their access to green technologies and promoting the use of sustainable energy.
Help us build a more sustainable future for children
Donate nowGiving children a voice in the fight for their environment
Unicef fights to make sure that children’s rights and their voices are central to the discussions about climate and the environment. We’re based in 190 countries and use our unrivalled influence and expertise to make sure governments stick to the climate and environment goals they have set. And we help them to develop even more ambitious programmes that better protect children from the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation
Children deserve to have a say in their future, and we are fighting for their right to be heard, here and around the world. In the UK we’ve been campaigning for children’s right to breathe clean air, pressuring the government to reduce toxic air in the UK to legal levels recommended by the World Health Organisation. And in places like Zambia, child-led advocacy programme Unite4Climate is empowering 11- to 17-year-olds to become climate ambassadors.
London, 2019, children take part in the Unicef UK Action Day: Protecting Children from Toxic Air demonstration by Marble Arch. 86% of children in the UK are breathing dangerously toxic air.
Unicef
Support Unicef and help us build a more sustainable future for children
By supporting Unicef you can help protect children from the effects of climate change, fight for their voices to be heard and build a sustainable future.
