UNICEF's Children's Climate Risk Report 2026

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The newly released UNICEF Children's Climate Risk Report 2026 shows that 392 million children in India face severe climate hazards.
This total means that 92% of all children in the country deal with extreme heat regularly.
An extra group of 89 million children must cope with recurrent heatwaves across different regions.

The UNICEF Children's Climate Risk Report 2026 is a global study that checks how vulnerable children are to environmental dangers.
It looks at how overlapping climate problems like extreme heat, droughts, floods, storms, and dirty air harm children.
The report tracks direct impacts on kids by studying their health, education, daily nutrition, and overall survival rates.

India scores a very high hazard exposure score of 9.21 out of 10 in the global assessment.
Only Pakistan at 9.44 and Bangladesh at 9.38 score higher than India in the South Asian region.
India gets the highest possible score of 10 out of 10 specifically for extreme heat exposure.
Global climate change is making heatwaves happen more often, last longer, and grow much more intense.
India's exposure score for air pollution stands at a dangerous 9.94 out of 10.
Bad air quality continues to threaten the normal health and physical development of young children.
The report gives India a drought risk score of 8.84 out of 10 due to rising water shortages.
Water scarcity creates serious risks for daily nutrition, family livelihoods, and overall child welfare.
Across the world, 1.1 billion children live with at least three overlapping climate hazards at the same time.
Many children in India face a dangerous mix of extreme heat, dry droughts, and heavy air pollution.
Current Heat Action Plans in India mostly ignore children and lack proper safety rules for them.
Existing plans fail to include special safeguards for schools and Anganwadis.
Action plans also miss rules for managing night-time heat and mapping child vulnerability properly.
Most policies lack age-specific adaptation steps to protect young bodies from climate stress.

Rising heat stress, air pollution, and climate disasters directly increase diseases and malnutrition among children.
Extreme heat and climate shocks reduce school attendance and lower the learning capacity of students.
Future climate policies must include child-specific measures like resilient schools and stronger public healthcare systems.