It was announced at COP27’s Youth and Future Generations Day that more needs to be done to protect children from climate change. It was also announced by Egypt’s Minister of Social Solidarity, Nivine El-Kabbag, that Egypt, Unicef, and the United Nations’ children’s agency are working towards strategies that will guard them against climate risks.
This decision has been made due to the many extreme weather events that have occurred worldwide that have affected the education, health and safety of children, especially in the countries that have been directly impacted.
Nivine El-Kabbag, has stated that:
“Children are the most vulnerable and most affected by the negative impacts of climate change, which leads to a decline in their life quality in the future. We have a great opportunity to be better. We should not be satisfied with adaptation efforts. We must prepare for possible future environmental changes.”
According to The Coldest Year of the Rest of Their Lives report, UNICEF have reported that 560 million children have been affected by heat waves and by 2050, every child around the world will be affected.
UNICEF have introduced an index, the Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI), to calculate how at risk children are from the impacts of climate change. At the time of its launch the number of children that were calculated to be at an extremely high risk from climate and environmental impacts reached roughly 1 billion children.
