UNICEF: Pakistan among the most susceptible countries to climate threats

Almost all children around the world are exposed to at least one climate hazard, with up to 1.8 billion children at risk from droughts and 1.2 billion from extreme heat, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a report released Tuesday, naming Pakistan among the countries most vulnerable to climate hazards.

UNICEF said children are “disproportionately affected” by a range of rising climate-related threats and countries need to rapidly invest in infrastructure, adaptation and disaster management capacity to decrease their vulnerability. Below are some of the details from UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Report.

The research examined a wide range of ⁠climate dangers, as well as the effects of air pollution and the threat of vector-borne diseases like malaria.

It also looked at data on access to water, health care and social services globally.

The report warned of a “dangerous cascade of multiple, overlapping hazards” that could overwhelm governments and social services, as many as 1.1 billion children globally being exposed to at least three overlapping climate dangers.

“It’s not just the exposure to the single hazards like floods or droughts or heat waves and extreme heat that children face, but it is the exposure to multiple hazards,” said Rohini Sampoornam Swaminathan, UNICEF statistics manager and one of the authors of the report.

Exposure to tropical storms reached 662 million children, to riverine floods 337 million, to coastal floods 33 million, and to malaria 1 billion children, largely in Africa.

In 2024, climate threats hindered the education of 242 million youngsters across 85 countries.

Somalia, Madagascar, Myanmar, Cambodia and Pakistan were most at risk, UNICEF said.
The biggest numbers of children exposed to drought are in agriculture based economies like Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Tanzania.

The dangers of drought, desertification, heat stress and flash floods were “disproportionately” high for children in landlocked countries, with water stress expected to increase in countries such as Botswana and Burkina Faso.