Children's Climate Emergency
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Children’s Climate Emergency
Climate change is the biggest threat facing kids today.
From Aotearoa and the Pacific, to the farthest reaches of our planet – 1 billion children are facing increasingly frequent and more extreme climate emergencies. From cyclones to heatwaves, flooding to drought – an ever-growing number of kids are in danger.
A staggering 90% of the world’s disasters are climate related. When a school is wiped out by floods, or a cyclone destroys a community health clinic, or drought kills a family’s crops – it’s children who are impacted the most. Every climate emergency further reduces their chances of a happy, healthy childhood.
This is not the future, this is the now. Climate change is here, we have to act.
You can support our work protecting kids against the effects of climate change. Donate now.
Water and Sanitation
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Shelter and Protection
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Health and Medicines
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Nutrition
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Education
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Vaccines
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Water and Sanitation
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$26 NZD
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you could give 10 collapsible water containers for families displaced after a climate emergency.
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What’s UNICEF doing to protect children against the climate crisis?
We’re focused on creating sustainable, long-term solutions to the biggest climate induced threats children are facing. By harnessing the power of innovation and adopting ground-breaking technology, we’re tackling urgent issues such as water scarcity, climate resiliency and food insecurity caused by climate change.
In 2022, we built 1,855 solar water systems to provide safe water to communities, health-care facilities and schools – resulting in 5.4 million people gaining access to clean water and 3.2 million people to climate-resilient sanitation facilities. We’re also using the power of the sun to provide non-stop education for kids and aid women to grow climate resilient crops in Zambia.
“I really appreciate the knowledge I have been taught in both growing and preparing meals for the family.” says Kamana Mundia.
She's part of the Scaling up Nutrition project which is teaching women how to farm their land using locally occurring crops. This will have major nutrition benefits for her and her family.
Mobile life-saving teams
Malnutrition was already a big problem in Pakistan, however, last year the catastrophic floods made it worst. This climate disaster destroyed food sources and displaced an estimated 8 million people. UNICEF responded through our mobile health and nutrition teams to reach vulnerable kids like Azaan (16 months) and provide them with ready-to-eat therapeutic food and medicines.
Water for life
Yemen has a water crisis. Children struggle every day to get access to clean drinking water. To improve water access in Yemen, UNICEF and partners are installing sustainable, solar-powered water systems across the country. As of 2023, more than 150 solar fields are already up and running, benefitting 2.5 million people.
The power of the sun
To give vulnerable kids in parts of Zambia a safe, comfortable and enabling learning environment, UNICEF has installed solar panels in 19 schools, supporting more than 6,000 students. Not only did it bring electricity to the school, but also many young learners from marginalised communities back to class.
Mobile life-saving teams
Malnutrition was already a big problem in Pakistan, however, last year the catastrophic floods made it worst. This climate disaster destroyed food sources and displaced an estimated 8 million people. UNICEF responded through our mobile health and nutrition teams to reach vulnerable kids like Azaan (16 months) and provide them with ready-to-eat therapeutic food and medicines.
Water for life
Yemen has a water crisis. Children struggle every day to get access to clean drinking water. To improve water access in Yemen, UNICEF and partners are installing sustainable, solar-powered water systems across the country. As of 2023, more than 150 solar fields are already up and running, benefitting 2.5 million people.
How will my donation help children impacted by climate change?
By making a donation today, you’ll be helping us respond when the next cyclone, drought or other climate-related disaster strikes, while also fuelling our ongoing work to bring long-term, sustainable solutions for 1 billion children living in a climate crisis.
When children caught in the next climate emergency need our help, your support means we'll have pre-positioned supplies stockpiled and ready to go. When families need health, water, nutrition, shelter and emergency supplies, our amazing logistics network can deliver anywhere in the world within 48 hours.
Just recently, when Libya was struck by devastating Storm Daniel, we airlifted 30 tonnes of emergency supplies to distribute to families affected. And last year when 33 million people in Pakistan were impacted by catastrophic flooding, we raced to support kids and communities who’d lost everything.
While we’re quick to respond to climate emergencies, we’re not quick to leave. Your donation ensures we can stay and deliver for as long as kids need us. You’re helping us build back better by restoring damaged infrastructure, strengthening climate resilience against future disasters and creating local solutions to mitigate the effects of climate change right now.
We promise to maximise every dollar received into helping the 1 billion children, their families and their communities threatened by this climate crisis now, and for the future.
A young boy plays with a plastic ball in the village of Ampotaka, Madagascar.
His community has experienced several years of back-to-back droughts which wiped out crops and hampered access to food. When the water dries out, families are forced to travel 20km by ox wagon to fill up jerry cans with clean water.
To support the people of Ampotaka, UNICEF has built an artificial underwater aquifer so the village can store up to four months worth of water. This helps families survive the dry season and means children can spend their time playing and learning, instead of collecting water for their families.
How else can I help protect kids against the effects of climate change?
Sign our petition
You can help make real climate action for kids, right now. This petition is about calling on our Government to commit to ensuring 1 billion kids, in Aotearoa, the Pacific and around the world, have climate resilient social systems and infrastructure so they can live in this new era and access their basic rights – housing, health, food, water, education and protection from extreme weather emergencies. Sign our petition.
By standing together, we can push the government of Aotearoa to take stronger climate action right now.
Share this appeal
Help us spread awareness of the impact of climate change on 1 billion kids by sharing this appeal with your friends and family.
Fundraise for kids in climate crisis
If you’d like to fundraise with your community to support our work protecting children in climate crisis, you can start a fundraiser here.
Other ways you can donate
By phone
If you’d like to donate over the phone, call our friendly team on 0800 243 575.
By online banking
If you’d like to donate direct to our bank account, please use account 01-0505-0463764-00 and code ‘CCC-WS’
Other ways to support kids in climate crisis:
Help us spread awareness of the situation for kids by sharing this appeal with your friends and family.
If you'd like to fundraise with your community to support our work, you can start a fundraiser here.
Disclaimer:
In the event that funds raised exceed UNICEF's funding requirements, the appeal no longer needs funding, or the decision is made to close this appeal, your one-off or ongoing monthly donation will go to our Greatest Need Appeal. Where possible we will communicate this with you, however in some circumstances this might not be possible.
UPDATED: 17th April, 2024
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Climate change is an urgent threat to pregnant women and children
Pregnant women, babies and children face extreme health risks from climate catastrophes that warrant urgent attention.
Declaring for Climate Action
We’ve created a petition asking the New Zealand government to declare the climate crisis a children’s emergency in parliament.
Weather-related disasters led to 43.1 million displacements of children over six years
Children in the Pacific islands of Vanuatu and Fiji featured highly on a per capita basis, with both countries in the top ten for proportion of children displaced by weather related events.