3 in 4 children in South Asia already face extreme heat they ‘simply cannot handle’, UN says
- About 460 million children are exposed to extreme heat in South Asia, the United Nations children’s agency warned on Monday
- Those living in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives and Pakistan are at ‘extremely high risk’, it said
About 460 million children are exposed to extreme heat in South Asia, or 76 per cent of children, compared to one-third of children globally, the UN children’s agency said.
“With the world at global boiling, the data clearly show that the lives and well-being of millions of children across South Asia are increasingly threatened by heatwaves and high temperatures,” said Sanjay Wijesekera, Unicef regional director for South Asia.
Young children simply cannot handle the heat
Children cannot adapt as quickly to temperature changes and are not able to remove excess heat from their bodies.
“Young children simply cannot handle the heat,” Wijesekera said. “Unless we act now, these children will continue to bear the brunt of more frequent and more severe heatwaves in the coming years.”
About 1.2 degrees (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) of global warming has occurred since the late 1800s, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, making heatwaves hotter, longer and more frequent, as well as intensifying other weather extremes such as storms and floods.