Impact of climate change on children



A Filipino boy carries supplies through waist-high floodwater caused by Tropical Storm Ketsana in September 2009. Nearly 2 million people affected.
© UNICEF/NYHQ2009-1446/MIKE ALQUINTO

The UN Climate Change Conference -- officially the 18th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change -- is taking place this week in Doha, Qatar. It opened on 26 November and will continue until 7 December 2012. This photo essay aims to illustrate some of the consequences of extreme weather conditions resulting from climate change on children of the East Asia & Pacific region, the world's most affected by natural disasters.

A 2011 UNICEF report, titled Children’s Vulnerabilities to Climate Change and Disaster Impacts in East Asia and the Pacific, explains that children are among those most affected by the consequences of climate change. The impact of natural disasters and extreme weather conditions is greater in East Asia and the Pacific than anywhere else in the world, and experts expect these catastrophic events to become even more extreme, as a result of rapid urbanization, population growth, deforestation and climate change. The childhoods of millions of children across the region are already difficult.  If climate change continues, extreme weather conditions are likely to make their difficult childhoods even worse.

Apart from the photo essay, we also have some climate change related videos from countries in the region.

From Viet Nam

The film shows how climate change has affected a community and its young people in a coastal commune in Quang Binh province, Viet Nam. It was made as part of a 3 country project with UNICEF Viet Nam, the Democracy Center in Bolivia and UNICEF UK that combines young people's expressions and viewpoints on climate change in their own countries into one unified voice.

From Kiribati

From Vanuatu



From Malaysia