Introducing the Children's Climate Risk Index

• The UNICEF has released its first focussed report on children titled ‘The Climate Crisis Is a Child Rights Crisis: Introducing the Children’s Climate Risk Index’ (CCRI).
• The CCRI ranks countries based on how vulnerable children are to environmental stresses and extreme weather events.
• Almost every child on earth is exposed to at least 1 of these major climate and environmental hazards, shocks, and stresses.

Key findings:

• Approximately 1 billion children live in one of the 33 countries classified as “extremely high-risk”, including the four South Asian countries.
• These children face a deadly combination of exposure to multiple climate and environmental shocks with a high vulnerability due to inadequate essential services, such as water and sanitation, healthcare and education.
• Nearly, 1 billion children are are highly exposed to exceedingly high levels of air pollution.
• The 33 ‘extremely high-risk’ countries collectively emit just 9 per cent of global CO2 emissions.
• 600 million children are highly exposed to vector-borne diseases.
• India is among four South Asian countries where children are most at risk.
• Climate change threatens their health, education, and protection.
• Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and India are the four South Asian countries where children are at extremely high risk.
• Pakistan was ranked at 14th position, Bangladesh at 15th, Afghanistan at 25th while India at 26th.
• Nepal is ranked at 51st, Sri Lanka at 61st, while Bhutan is ranked 111th.

Why children are more vulnerable to climate and environmental shocks than adults:

• They are physically more vulnerable and less able to withstand and survive shocks such as floods, droughts, severe weather, and heatwaves.
• They are physiologically more vulnerable. Toxic substances, such as lead and other forms of pollution, affect children more than adults, even at lower doses of exposure.
• They are more at risk of death compared with adults from diseases that are likely to be exacerbated by climate change, such as malaria and dengue.
• They have their whole life ahead of them – any deprivation as a result of climate and environmental degradation at a young age can result in a lifetime of lost opportunity.

UNICEF gave some recommendations for governments, businesses, and other relevant actors:

• To increase investment in climate adaptation and resilience in key services for children.
• To reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• Providing children with climate education and greens skills, critical for their adaptation to and preparation for the effects of climate change.
• To include young people in all national, regional, and international climate negotiations and decisions, including at COP26.
• To ensure the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is green, low-carbon and inclusive so that the capacity of future generations to address and respond to the climate crisis is not compromised.

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF):

• UNICEF, headquartered in New York, is a special program of the United Nations devoted to aiding national efforts to improve the health, nutrition, education, and general welfare of children.
• UNICEF was created in 1946 as International Children’s Emergency Fund (ICEF) by UN relief Rehabilitation Administration to help children affected by World War II.
• It became a permanent part of the United Nations in 1953 and subsequently changed its name to United Nations Children’s Fund, it continues to use the acronym UNICEF.
• UNICEF is guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989.
• It received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1965.
• It works in over 190 countries and territories with 7 regional offices.