UNICEF says figure on displacement of children in 30 years 'absolute underrepresentation'

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

GENEVA (AA) - The estimated number of children – 113.5 million – who will be displaced in the next 30 years is an "absolute underrepresentation," a UNICEF official said on Friday.

Responding to Anadolu's question at a briefing in Geneva, Verena Knaus, UNICEF’s global lead on migration and displacement, said close to 96 million children would be displaced because of riverine flooding, 10.3 million by cyclonic winds and nearly 7.2 million by storm surges in the next three decades.

But, she added: "I just want to caveat that these figures are actually an absolute underrepresentation of what the future may actually look like."

Knaus stressed the future model UNICEF has employed does not cover all hazards. "The future model only looks at riverine flooding, which is only an aspect of floods. The future model does not include evacuations ... The future model also does not take into account climate change scenarios, you know, degrees changing and the sort of accelerating tipping point effects."

"So, I just really want to emphasize that that is an underestimate," she warned.

About funding, the UNICEF official said the world needs to reimagine climate finance. "We need to use all the opportunities we have from risk insurance schemes to green bonds, blue bonds, but most importantly, we need to unlock climate finance to go to the countries where the greatest risks meet the weakest coping capacities," she said.

She was referring to countries such as South Sudan, where already 12% of the child population has been displaced, and islands like Vanuatu, where 25% of the child population has been dislocated by storms.

"So, it is not so much about the amount because the investments will vary greatly depending on the context," she said. "It is about scaling up and really prioritizing those areas where the risks are greatest, the numbers of children our greatest, capacities today are lowest."

"So, there is a future that requires action," she said, adding that the COP28 meeting in Dubai later this year is where the states need to show they take this data seriously.

- 20,000 child displacements every day

In its Children Displaced in a Changing Climate analysis on Friday, the UN Children's Agency said storms, floods, wildfires and other extreme weather events led to more than 43 million children displacements in 44 countries between 2016 and 2021.

Nearly 20,000 child displacements occured every day in the past six years, according to the report.

China and the Philippines are among the countries that recorded the most child displacements in terms of numbers, but relative to the size of the child population, children living in small island states, such as Dominica and Vanuatu, were most affected by storms.

Children in Somalia and South Sudan, meanwhile, were the most affected by floods.

Floods and storms accounted for 95% of recorded child displacements with 40.9 million in mentioned period.

Droughts caused over 1.3 million internal child displacements, with Somalia being among the most affected, while wildfires caused 810,000 displacements, with Canada, Israel and the US recording the highest numbers.