The Climate-Changed Child

This report builds on 2021’s Children’s Climate Risk Index and examines water scarcity and water vulnerability along with the critical actions the international community must take at COP28 to protect children against climate change. Children are not like little adults. Their bodies and minds are uniquely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change such as pollution, deadly diseases and extreme weather. Yet they have been either ignored or largely disregarded in the global climate change discourse and financing. UNICEF’s 2021 landmark Children's Climate Risk Index (CCRI) report found that 1 billion children are at extremely high risk of the impacts of the climate crisis and examined eight components of climate and environmental shocks and stresses. This report builds on the CCRI and examines one of these components – water scarcity (the physical availability of water) along with water vulnerability (the combination of water scarcity and lack of access to drinking water service).