43.1 Million Children's Displaced, says Climate Displacement Report by UNICEF

Between the year 2016-2021, a total of 134.1 million peoples were internally displaced due to climate change alone and out of them 43.1 million were children's.

The UNICEF has released the Climate Displacement Report which states that between the year 2016-2021, a total of 134.1 million peoples were displaced due to climate change alone across the globe and out of those there were 43.1 million children’s who were displaced by the climate crisis as well.

In the past six years, a total of 43.1 million children’s were internally displaced that is 20,000 child displacements per day, the report stated. The report also stated that almost all 95% of the child displacement were caused by floods and storms. According to the report, a total of 23 million child displacements due to climate crisis were occurred in three countries: India,China 7 the Philippines. There were 9.7 million child displacements in the Philippines, 6.7 million in India and 6.4 million child displacements in China. These countries are also among the countries that are hit harder by the climate crisis every year, causing the damage of billions.

The main highlight of the report is that these displacements were driven by four major disasters- floods, storms, droughts and wildfires.

Image Credit: UNICEF

Flood

Globally, 19.7 million children’s were displaced due to the climate change between the year 2016-2021. The largest number of child displacement were occurred in the following 10 countries:

3.9 million in India, 3.7 million in China, 1.3 million in Philippines, 990,000 in Somalia, 950,000 in Bangladesh, 930,000 in Indonesia, 920,000 in Ethiopia, 660,000 in South Sudan, 650,000 in Nigeria and 570,000 in Sudan.

And if we talk about the greatest number of child displacements in terms of the size of their child population then an equivalent of 12% children  in South Sudan and 11% in Somalia were displaced due to the floods.

Storm

Storms caused an estimated 67 million peoples displacement across the globe during the period of six years between 2016-2021 and out of those, there were 21 million children’s who were displaced due to the climate crisis. The decade of inaction is increasing the sufferings of the generation who is not responsible for the climate crisis.

The top 10 countries with the most child displacements driven by storms includes: Bangladesh, China, Cuba, Honduras, India, Madagascar, Mozambique, Philippines, the United States and Vietnam

The majority of child displacement due to storms were recorded in the Philippines(8.3 million), India (2.8 million) and China(2.6 million). The report also stated that small island nations and areas in the Caribbean and Pacific were also one of the most affected countries. In terms of the population of children’s, an equivalent of 76% children’s in Dominica, 37% in Sint Maarten and 31% in Cuba were displaced due to the storms.

Drought

Droughts displaced more than 1.3 million children’s internally across 15 countries between 2016 and 2021. More than half of those displacements – 730,000 – were recorded in Somalia, with another 340,000 in Ethiopia and 190,000 in Afghanistan.

The 10 countries with the most child displacements triggered by droughts from 2017 to 2021 were: Afghanistan, Angola, Brazil, Burundi, Ethiopia, India, Iraq, Madagascar, Somalia and South Sudan.

Wildfire

The 10 countries with the most child displacements triggered by wildfires from 2016 to 2021 were: Australia, Canada, China, France, Greece, Israel, Spain, Syria, Türkiye and the United States.