By the time many of the teenage climate activists of today are in their late 20s, climate change could force an additional 100 million people into extreme poverty [World Bank]. By 2050, the risk of hunger and malnutrition could rise by 20 percent if the global community fails to act now [WFP]. This year’s theme for the International Day of Democracy, “Empowering the next generation,” focuses on young people’s essential role in advancing democracy and ensuring that their voices are included in the decisions that have a profound impact on their world.

Children in 48 out of 49 African countries assessed are categorized as at high or extremely high risk of the impacts of climate change, says a UNICEF report, "Time to Act: African children in the climate change spotlight". Yet, only 2.4% of global climate funding targets children. Children living in the Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria, Guinea, Somalia and Guinea-Bissau are the most at risk.

UNICEF and UNEP are working together on an increasing number of projects that demonstrate how communities across Africa can become more resilient as they adapt to the impacts of a changing climate. UNEP, UNICEF and ILO are working together with young people, governments, employers' and workers' organizations, and the private sector to design and implement the Green Jobs for Youth Pact.

Forests are one of the solutions to the climate crisis but are also under pressure from climate change itself. What are the strategies to face this complex reality?

In this episode of the UN Forest Podcast, 2023 Oscar-winning actress and UNDP Goodwill Ambassador Michelle Yeoh is joined by Professor Almut Arneth, Coordinating Lead Author of the IPCC Special Report on land and climate change, to explore the unique relationship between forests and climate change.

An episode by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.

Image Credit: ©UNECE and UNDP

As parts of the world experience record breaking temperatures, learn how heat harms us, who is at risk and what you can do to protect yourself. Dr Joy Shumake-Guillemot explains in Science in 5. Science in 5 is WHO's conversation in science.

Photo Credit: ©WHO Podcast.

The summer of 2023 is recording some of the highest temperatures on record, for our entire planet. These new records have significant consequents, not just for the environment but also for human life, including the world of work. Heat stress is a growing issue. It affects not just individual workers – particularly those who work outside – but also businesses and the overall economy, because higher temperatures affect productivity. Working hours, routines, equipment, and regulation may all have to change. ILO explores the consequences of these higher temperatures for the world of work. How will governments, businesses and individual workers adapt?

When Tropical Cyclone Freddy slammed into Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi, 32,000 pregnant women were due to give birth within weeks. The destruction of homes, health facilities and travel routes during the cyclone made childbirth much more perilous. Around 5,000 of the women could expect to experience complications in their final months of pregnancy or during childbirth, which, without access to skilled care, could prove fatal. A climate crisis is an obstetric emergency. After a two-hour journey on an ambulance recently repaired by UNFPA, Mercy, 37, gave birth to healthy twin boys.

El Niño is coming, warns WMO. Early warnings and anticipatory action of extreme weather events associated with this major climate phenomenon are vital to save lives and livelihoods. 

In Bentiu in South Sudan, climate change is not just an environmental issue, it is a challenge to people’s very existence. Four years of historic rains in this region have submerged farmlands, ancestral homes and road. Some 360,000 people have fled due to the floods. They now live in internal displacement sites below the waterline, hemmed in by dikes. While the mainstream debate surrounding climate change centres on the world becoming uninhabitable in the future, in Bentiu it is already a reality. UNHCR continues to build drainage systems and taller dikes in preparation for the rains.

During the Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue 2023, held during the Bonn Climate Conference, the crucial importance of action to protect the ocean was highlighted, as well as the need for the ocean to feature prominently in all relevant aspects of the UN Climate Change process. The June Ocean Dialogue coincided with preparations for the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference COP28 in the United Arab Emirates at the end of the year, where the outcomes of the global stocktake will be a key focus, along with other ways to increase ambition on climate change.

Haiti’s hunger crisis is unseen, unheard, and unaddressed leaving more than 4.9 million Haitians struggling to eat day-to-day. Pervasive insecurity and extreme weather conditions are inhibiting access to the rich food productive areas in the region. WFP is optimistic that despite these challenges, empowering the local community will build long-term capacities in bridging the food crisis. There needs to be a multi-sector response and investments in the local grassroot organizations to stabilize humanitarian assistance in Haiti.

Fashion has one of the most powerful marketing engines that influences the identities, values, and actions of billions of people. This, in turn, impacts consumption patterns, a central factor in reducing the sector's climate impact. UNEP and UN Climate Change launched the Sustainable Fashion Communication Playbook, a guide with an interactive version, on how to align consumer-facing communication in the fashion industry with sustainable targets in accordance to the Paris Agreement. Its purpose is to reduce the carbon print and overconsumption, demand action, and inspire sustainable lifestyles.

Small-scale farmers in developing countries are only one flood, one drought or one failed harvest away from ruin. IFAD asks "Tomorrow is a new day. What will it look like?" 

In the words of rice farmer Deur Sok, the difference the 2.3km canal built in 2022 as part of a World Food Programme-backed project is making in Sambour, a commune in central Cambodia’s Kampong Thom province is tremendous. Changing weather patterns in the past few years have caused an unpredictable succession of drought and flooding, which spelled disaster for farmers relying on so-called wet season – or rainfed – rice cultivation. Farmers in the region had seen their plants wilt when there was not enough water – or washed away when there was too much. The canal has broken their dependence on erratic weather events and as a result, their yields have more than doubled.

Benazir and her husband lost a child amidst the tumult of the floods and have since faced challenges trying to feed their other children. The impact of last year’s historic floods will be felt for years to come by children and their families. In these climate-related crises children suffer most, with those in the poorest communities bearing the biggest burden. More than 1.5 million boys and girls are already severely malnourished, a number that will only rise in the absence of safe water and proper sanitation. UNICEF is training teachers on psychosocial care and health care and has established hundreds of temporary learning centres in the worst-affected districts.

Nearly two weeks after Cyclone Mocha, a grim certainty looms as the coastal areas of Myanmar and Bangladesh enters monsoon season. The cyclone has sent food prices soaring and wiped-out people’s slender food stocks. But now Mocha’s devastation has only deepened hunger already sharpened by the country’s conflict and political and economic crises. WFP has distributed hot meals and emergency food assistance to thousands of people in the immediate aftermath of the storm. A funding shortfall is threatening WFP's response in both countries.