31 Oct UNICEF report 

UNICEF Report 

Details on “UNICEF Report” 

How heat waves are impacting children globally 

Prelims: common issues on Environmental Ecology, Biodiversity, and Climate Change

Mains: GS III: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.

 Context :

• This news is based on the article published by The Indian Express, titled “UNICEF’s ‘The coldest year of the rest of their lives report”. The article gives the details of the report released by UNICEF.
• United Nations Children’s Fund,(UNICEF), has released a report named “Coldest Year of the Rest of Their Lives – Protecting children from the escalating impacts of heatwaves”,  it shows that by 2050, almost all children across the globe will be exposed to more common and severe heat waves.

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

• This was formerly known as United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund.
• At first, It was initiated in 1946, to provide relief to children in countries shattered by World war II.
•  The Headquartered of UNICEF is  in New York City
• It is a special program of the UN  committed to assisting the national initiatives to upgrade the health, nutrition, education and general studies and general welfare of the children.
• However, after 1950, it was instructed to put, its efforts toward general programs for the improvement of children’s welfare, especially in less-developed countries and many different emergency situations.
• Its aims were reflected when the present name is adopted in 1953.
• UNICEF was honoured with Nobel Prize for Peace in 1965.
• Both government and private contributions finance the activities of UNICEF.
• I also hold-ups immunization programs for childhood diseases and programs to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
• It also provides funding for health services, educational facilities and other welfare services.

The observation of the

Current situation :

• About 599 million children across the world are exposed to high frequency and about 624 million children are exposed to one of the three other high heat measures – high heat wave duration, high heat wave severity and extremely high temperature.
• One in every four children lives in regions, where the average heat waves event lasts 4.7 days or longer as in 2022
• It is expected that the ratio will increase by over 3 in every 4 under a low-emission scenario by 2050.
• It was noted that the children belonging to the regions like western and south-eastern Asia, eastern and southern Europe and northern Africa experience heat waves of longer duration.
•  What will be its future impacts?
• It is predicted that 2050 the number of children exposed to heat waves will quadruple to over 2 billion by 2050, which will be 24% more than the children exposed to heat waves in 2020.
• This amount is increased to 1.5 billion children till now.
• It is estimated that in 2050 every child on earth will experience severe heat waves in spite of a low greenhouse gas emission scenario with 1.7oC of warming.
•  94% of children expected to be exposed with only small areas of Southern America, Central Africa, Australia and Asia not exposed to high heat waves duration, at 2.4oC of warming 
• Extreme atmospheric heat can result in drought, which will cause hurdles in accessing clean drinking water and healthy food.
• The report highlights that the heat waves will result in the stunted development of children and force families to migrate.

Heat waves are

  Pic: UNICEF Report

• It is a period of 3 days or more when the maximum temperature every day is in the top 10% of the local 15-day average.
• Dangers of heat waves include heat stroke, heat stress, allergy, chronic respiratory conditions, asthma,mosquito-borne disease, cardiovascular disease,under-nutrition and diarrhoea.

 Higher susceptibility of the children’s

• As children spend more time outdoors than indoors compared to an adult for activities like sports and other activities, heat waves pose more risk for them, putting them at greater risk for heat injury

How it will put an Impact on Health:

• High temperatures are connected to an increase in mental health issues in children and adolescents
• It also includes post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression.
• Utmost heat will essentially influence the children’s education and future livelihoods

 How it is threatening the Children’s Safety:

• Communities are compelled to hunt for resources for and complete over food and water resources as pastures and it also disturbs the household incomes, as a result, the communities’ migrates, displacement and conflicts expose children to major physical harm and risks.

4 P’s Recommended by THE UNICEF

According to the UNICEF report

• “Heat is especially damaging to children’s health and affects their education and future livelihoods.
• It is high time for Individual Countries to some  actions :

• Protecting children from climate devastation by encouraging social services
• Preparing children to live in a climate-changed world
• Prioritising children and youth in climate finance and resources
• Preventing a climate catastrophe by reducing greenhouse gas emissions

The 27th Conference of Parties (COP-27) which is going to be held on the 2nd week of November, in Egypt, to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 

Bring into the focus of progress on loss and damage, placing the resilience of children and their communities as the topic of the discussions on action and support.

Other related indexes

UNICEF: Climate Risk Index of children.

• It ranks the nations based on the children’s exposure to climate and environmental shocks, like heat waves and cyclones, as well as their vulnerability to those shocks, based on their access to
• It ranks countries based on , such as Cyclones and Heatwaves, as well as their vulnerability to those shocks, based on their access to basic services.

Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) Index:

• It has reported the impact of climate change on children across the world.
• It describes that the children will be impacted by food shortages, diseases and other health threats, water scarcity, or be at risk from rising water levels or all of these factors.

 Sources 

 The Indian Express

Download Plutus ias current affairs 31th Oct 2022

Daily Current Affairs for UPSC 

The article written above is related to Current events of national and international importance. If you want to get such kinds latest information on Daily Current Affairs, please visit our Plutus IAS. It provides you all the latest information on Daily Current affairs for UPSC. In present era, Current affairs for UPSC examination are very important for any competitive examination. Without Daily current affairs, None can crack their UPSC examination.

farhin