Childhoods at risk from climate change, futures at risk

When we talk about climate change, we often discuss rising sea levels, scientific data on melting glaciers, or an uncertain future. We speak as if the issue is still far away, like a story of some danger that lies outside our daily lives. The reality is actually much closer and more painful. This is because the deepest scars of this crisis are felt by those children who still know the world through rain-soaked fields, riverbanks, schoolyards, and the warmth of their mothers’ hands. A small child in a coastal village may be growing up seeing houses destroyed after repeated cyclones. A child in a remote area or an urban slum is falling ill from the intense heat. Elsewhere, books and countless colourful childhood dreams are drowning in floodwaters. The climate crisis is no longer just a matter of research for scientists. It is the daily lives of millions of children today, their stories of fear, uncertainty, hunger, displacement, and lost memories.

While reading UNICEF’s recent Children’s Climate Risk Report 2026, it seems that behind every statistic there is a child’s face, a mother’s anxiety, and a family’s sigh. When we look at the map of this global crisis, our beloved Bangladesh comes to the fore as one of the most painful and vulnerable names. According to UNICEF’s data, almost half of the world’s children, numbering about 1.1 billion, are currently facing at least three terrible climate disasters at the same time. And due to geographical reasons, Bangladesh’s children are at the very centre of this multidimensional crisis.

Our country’s children are not going through any theoretical climate change. They are living through it. Or better said, they are struggling to survive. More than one-third of Bangladesh’s children live in areas that are extremely vulnerable to climate change. Looking at children in coastal areas, it can be seen that their lives are today in grave danger because of frequent cyclones and saltwater intrusion. There is a severe shortage of clean drinking water in the saline water-prone areas of Satkhira, Khulna and Bagerhat. Because of this salt water, children are suffering from various complex diseases, including skin diseases. Again, children in the northern part of the country and river basins of Kurigram and Jamalpur districts are victims of river erosion and flash floods every year. When a char land or house disappears into the river, a child’s entire known world is lost in an instant. Apart from this, in recent years another silent killer has been affecting the children of Bangladesh. That is severe and prolonged heat wave. From the country’s big cities to remote areas, the physical and mental development of children is being hampered by the intensity of the heat wave everywhere.

Climate change is not a single linear disaster. Its effects work like a chain reaction or a vicious cycle. Severe droughts or floods do not just burn or wash away crop fields. They lead to extreme food shortages and malnutrition. After the pain of losing their homes, when children from rural and coastal areas are displaced with their families and take shelter in the slums of Dhaka or any other big city, their normal childhood is stopped forever. There, they face extreme insecurity. They are deprived of clean water and healthy sanitation. As a result, water-borne and mosquito-borne diseases like diarrhoea, dengue or malaria easily take hold of children. The biggest blow in this whole process comes to the basic rights of children. UNICEF has clearly shown in their report that thousands of children are dropping out of school in Bangladesh every year because of climate change. When families become economically bankrupt, girls are forced into early marriage and boys are pushed into hazardous child labour. The climate crisis is thus destroying the potential of an entire generation.

Although the climate crisis is global, its impact does not fall on everyone equally. The UNICEF report has shown very clearly that the intensity of this risk varies depending on geographical location and the capacity of social services. The helpless child standing in floodwaters in Vietnam’s Vinh City, the boy living in a refugee camp amidst a scorching sandstorm in Sudan, or the homeless child standing on the banks of the Jamuna River in our own Bangladesh – none of them are just statistics. Each is a living symbol of a threatened childhood. Yet, the children of the global south, including Bangladesh, are paying a high price for the luxurious lifestyle and carbon emissions of the developed world. Now is the time to stand up against this extreme international inequality and injustice.

To protect children from this disaster, it is not enough to express concern in international forums. Urgent and coordinated child-friendly actions are needed at the national and global levels. In light of UNICEF’s specific recommendations, we need to take several urgent steps. These include giving direct priority to children’s health, nutrition, education and protection in the allocations of the Bangladesh National Adaptation Plan and the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust. Schools and health centres in rural and coastal areas must be built as disaster-resilient social infrastructure so that they remain functional even in severe floods, tidal waves or extreme heat wave and can serve as safe shelters for children. We must also prioritise climate education and children’s voices by including climate awareness and practical education on disaster management in our curriculum, as well as create an environment that gives importance to the opinions of the young generation and children in determining climate policy. 

Finally, we must carry out strong diplomatic activities to ensure international funding for the protection and rehabilitation of Bangladesh’s children from the Global Shield Against Climate Risks or Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) and obtain international compensation.

Today’s children do not understand the political agenda. They do not understand the complex calculations of carbon credits. They just want to live in a safe, green and healthy world. If we push these millions of children of Bangladesh into an uncertain and dark future because of our indifference today, future generations will never forgive us.

This UNICEF report for 2026 is not a prediction of some distant crisis. It is the final warning bell knocking on our door. The decision now lies with world leaders and our policymakers – do we give children a safe and livable Bangladesh, or do we abandon their childhood forever in this climate hellhole?

Writer: Shahed Kayes is poet and rights activist

The article was originally published in the print and online editions of The Daily Samakal and has been rewritten for the English version by Mohammed Humayun Kabir, Assistant News Editor