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20,000 children displaced each day by weather-related disasters, UNICEF reports
Extreme weather events forcibly displaced 43.1 million children across 44 countries over the past six years, the UN Children’s Fund said on Friday.
That figure translates to an alarming average of 20,000 children uprooted every day.
UNICEF latest report, Children Displaced in a Changing Climate, is the first global analysis of child displacements caused by floods, storms, droughts and wildfires. “The report finds that on average 20,000 children have been displaced by weather-related events every single day for the past six years. Tropical storms, hurricanes, floods or wildfires caused more than 43 million displacements of children in 44 countries over just six years,” explained Verena Knaus, UNICEF’s Global Lead on Migration and Displacement to reporters in Geneva.
China and the Philippines are among the countries that recorded the highest absolute numbers of child displacements, owing to their exposure to extreme weather, large child populations and improved early warning and evacuation capacities, according to the report. “Floods and storms account for 95 per cent of those child displacements, due in part to better reporting and more pre-emptive evacuations,” Ms. Knaus said.
However, when considering the data relative to the size of the child population, children living in small island States such as Dominica and Vanuatu were most affected by storms, while in Somalia and South Sudan, floods were the biggest threat.
UNICEF predicts large-scale displacements of children will likely become more frequent as carbon emissions continue to rise and the impacts of climate change increase. “With every additional one degree of warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believes the global risk of displacement by flooding could rise by 50 per cent,” warned Ms. Knaus. “We are not prepared for this climate-changed future. And the displacement of children is barely on the radar of leaders and will probably be discussed only on the margins at COP28 in Dubai,” she added.
The UN Children’s Fund called for urgent action to support children already uprooted and prepare those at risk of displacement, by improving their adaptive capacity and resilience and involving them in finding solutions. “We need to re-imagine climate finance,” stressed Ms. Knaus. “We need to unlock climate finance to go to the countries where the greatest risks meet the weakest coping capacities.”
Ends
TRT: 2’03
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 06 October 2023
UNCTAC Press Conference
LOCATION: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
- Exterior wide shot, United Nations flag.
- Wide shot of panel and attendees at press briefing.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH) Verena Knaus, UNICEF’s Global Lead on Migration and Displacement: “The report finds that on average, every single day 20,000 children have been displaced by floods, storms, wildfires, or droughts. Or put differently: it is disasters like tropical storms, hurricanes, floods – like in Pakistan and wildfires like recently in Canada – that have displaced more than 43 million children over 44 countries in the past six years.”
- Attendee taking photo at briefing.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH) Verena Knaus, UNICEF’s Global Lead on Migration and Displacement: “The Children Displaced in Changing Climate report finds that floods and storms account for 95 per cent of those child displacements, especially in countries where there are large, good and robust displacement evacuation systems in place or early-warning, many of them are evacuated and their lives are saved, but the numbers keep growing.”
- Mid-shot of attendees.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH) Verena Knaus, UNICEF’s Global Lead on Migration and Displacement: “With every additional one degree of warming, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) believes the global risk of displacement by flooding – the largest driver – could rise by 50 per cent. We are not prepared for this climate-changed future. And the displacement of children is barely on the radar of leaders and will probably only on the margins be discussed at COP28 in Dubai.”
- Wide shot of panel at press briefing.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH) Verena Knaus, UNICEF’s Global Lead on Migration and Displacement: “We need to re-imagine climate finance. We need to use all the opportunities we have from risk insurance schemes to green bonds, blue bonds. But most importantly, we need to unlock climate finance to go to the countries where the greatest risks meet the weakest coping capacities.”
- Wide shot of panel and attendees at press briefing.
- Attendees filming and taking photo at briefing.
- Medium shot of panel and attendees at press briefing.
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New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
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Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
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Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
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