The United Nations lamented on Friday that children on the African continent are “bearing the brunt” of the impacts of climate change but continue to be “cruelly” neglected by funding intended to respond to the climate crisis.
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Africa, a continent of 1.2 billion people, is home to some of the world’s lowest greenhouse gas emitting countries, but is at the forefront of extreme weather events (repeated droughts, floods, cyclones, heat waves).
Children in 48 of the 49 African countries surveyed fall into the “high or extremely high risk” category of suffering the effects of climate change, according to a report released Friday by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
“It is clear that the youngest populations on the African continent are bearing the brunt of the impacts of climate change,” said Lieke van de Wiel, UNICEF deputy director for the Eastern and Southern Africa region.
“Due to their physiological vulnerability and inadequate access to essential social services, they are the least able to cope.”
However, UNICEF notes that the continent’s children “continue to be severely neglected by key climate finance streams necessary to help them adapt, survive and respond to the climate crisis.”
According to the organization, children are most at risk in Nigeria, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Chad, the Central African Republic and Somalia.
Unicef highlights in its report that less than 3% of global funding to combat climate change targets children and calls for this funding to be increased, particularly from the private sector.
“We need to provide more resources for this group so that they are equipped to deal with climate change throughout their lives,” argued Ms van de Wiel.
This report comes a few days before the first African Climate Summit, which begins on Monday in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
The summit marks the start of the busiest four months of the year for international climate negotiations and culminates in a fight over fossil fuel phase-out at COP28 in Dubai in December.