WHY IN NEWS?

According to a new report by UNICEF, Children in India are at extreme high risk of impacts of climate crisis

About:

• As per report, India is among four South Asian countries where children are most at risk.
• Climate change threatens their health, education, and protection.
• Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and India are the four South Asian countries where children are at extremely high risk.
• Pakistan was ranked at 14^thposition, Bangladesh at 15^th, Afghanistan at 25^th while India at 26^th.
• Nepal is ranked at 51^st, Sri Lanka 61^st, while Bhutan is ranked 111^th.
• About 1 billion children live in 33 countries that are classified as ‘extremely high-risk’.
• More than 600 million Indians will face ‘acute water shortages’ in upcoming years.
• At the same time, flash flooding will increase significantly in India’s urban areas once the global temperature increases to 2° Celsius.
• Further, twenty-one of world’s 30 cities with the most polluted air were in India in 2020.

CCR-about Index

These findings were published in UNICEF’s report titled: “’The Climate Crisis Is a Child Rights Crisis: Introducing the Children’s Climate Risk Index” (CCRI). CCRI is the first focussed report on children by UNICEF. The index ranks countries on the basis of children’s exposure to climate and environmental shocks like cyclones and heatwaves including the vulnerability to those shocks on the basis of their access to essential services.

High-risk in India

Index has placed India among one of the 33 extremely high-risk countries where flooding and air pollution are repeated environmental shocks. Such shocks lead to the socio-economic adverse consequences for women and children.