690m children at risk: UN
Nearly 690 million of the world's 2.3 billion children live in areas most exposed to climate change, facing higher rates of death, poverty and disease from global warming, the UN children's agency said yesterday.
On Monday, a report from the United Nations agency for disaster risk reduction (Unisdr) said that Weather-related disasters had grown more frequent over the last 20 years, claiming more than 600,000 lives, and issued issue a further call for nations to strike a landmark deal on climate change.
The climate conference opens on November 30 and is due to wrap up on December 11.
The report said floods, storms and other extreme weather events have killed 606,000 people since 1995, "with an additional 4.1 billion people injured, left homeless or in need of emergency assistance."
The report noted that while there was no way to establish how much of the rise in such disasters was caused by climate change, the link between the planet's changing climate and extreme weather was clear.
Almost 530 million children live in countries hardest-hit by high floods and tropical storms, mostly in Asia.
An additional 160 million kids are growing up in areas suffering severe droughts, mostly in Africa, UNICEF said in the report titled "Unless We Act Now."
US President Barack Obama and China's Xi Jinping are joining more than 147 world leaders in Paris next week for an international conference aimed at clinching the first agreement on tackling global warming in 20 years.
The most urgent task is for world governments to agree on curbing greenhouse gas emissions, said Rees, but action is also needed on the national level to deal with the impact.
Coastal areas in South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean are among the most vulnerable along with Pacific islands, the Horn of Africa and equatorial Africa.
"Today's children are the least responsible for climate change, but they, and their children, are the ones who will live with its consequences," said Unicef director Anthony Lake.
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