Climate Change Transforms Children's Lives: Latest UNICEF Report Warns of Crisis in Safety, Education, and Health

Tom Slaymaker, who leads the Data, Analytics, and Innovation team for Water, Sanitation, Hygiene (WASH) and Climate, Environment, Energy and Disaster Risk Reduction (CEED) at UNICEF, spoke at a regular UN press briefing in Geneva on June 16, 2026, about the impact of climate change on children as revealed in the "Children's Climate Risk Report 2026."

"Imagine a situation where children have to swim across a fast-flowing, crocodile-infested river just to get to school."

This is the daily reality for 15-year-old Lorna and her classmates in Papua New Guinea. A flood destroyed the bridge connecting their homes to their school, leaving them with no safe way to cross. Still, they refuse to give up on their education, packing their textbooks and uniforms in buckets and swimming across the dangerous river. For these children, the impact of climate change is not an abstract concept but a life-threatening reality they face just to attend class.

According to a new analysis released by UNICEF today, nearly every child in the world is exposed to at least one climate hazard, such as floods, droughts, tropical cyclones, or extreme heat. Of particular concern globally is that many children face a situation of overlapping, multiple threats.

Data shows that nearly half of the world's children, or 1.1 billion, are exposed to at least three climate hazards. In some regions, children face up to six. This combination of multiple, overlapping, and compounding climate shocks is fundamentally altering children’s lives.

In Africa's Sahel region, for instance, millions of children are already simultaneously facing extreme heat, drought, and dust storms. In countries like Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Pakistan, children are exposed to more severe and a greater number of climate hazards than in almost any other part of the world. And in small island nations like Haiti and Vanuatu, a single storm can cripple entire social systems overnight.

This is not a warning about a potential future. It clarifies the reality we face now and shows how much worse the situation could become for children.

When climate hazards overlap, their impacts are amplified. For example, a drought can lead to hunger and malnutrition in children. If a flood follows, it can contaminate water sources and spread diseases like cholera. One climate crisis makes the next one even more dangerous.

Children do not always have time to recover from one crisis before the next one hits. The children in Papua New Guinea were adapting to one climate crisis by swimming to school. But what happens when the next climate crisis arrives, causing floods that raise the water level, quicken the current, and turn their dangerous commute deadly?

No country is immune to the impacts of climate risk. But imagine the children in conflict-affected areas like the Central African Republic, Chad, Haiti, or Sudan. With severely limited access to essential services like healthcare, nutrition, and water and sanitation, even a non-lethal flood or drought can put their lives at risk.

Today, 634 million children worldwide lack access to safe drinking water, and 1 billion live in environments without safe sanitation. Climate hazards exacerbate these already vulnerable situations, for example, by increasing the risk of diarrheal diseases, one of the leading causes of death for children under five.

In 2024, at least 242 million children had their schooling disrupted by climate hazards. Many more were forced to flee their homes, increasing their risk of family separation, violence, exploitation, and trauma.

Children have contributed the least to the climate crisis, yet they are paying the highest price.

The latest UNICEF report helps to identify the children at greatest risk and target essential services where they are needed most by highlighting the areas where multiple climate hazards overlap and where children are most vulnerable. This allows governments to strengthen those services before the next shock hits.

We know what works: installing solar power so children can continue learning during power outages, accessing groundwater from aquifers when surface sources dry up, improving sanitation systems to reuse water for agriculture, and providing shelters to protect children and their families from tropical storms.

The message is clear: climate change is not just changing the planet; it is changing children.

Without urgent, child-focused climate action, the shocks that children are facing today will only intensify. But with the right investment and political will, we can mitigate risks, strengthen systems, and protect children's opportunity to survive and thrive.