By Arkoneil Ghosh & Anushka Konar
For many children, climate change is not just future concern. It already shapes where they live, whether they can attend school and how secure their everyday lives feel. UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Report 2026 estimates that nearly half of the world’s children are exposed to at least three overlapping climate hazards (UNICEF, 2026).
When a flood destroys a home or a drought wipes out a family’s crops, the impact goes beyond financial loss. For a child, it can mean leaving behind a home, losing schoolbooks, being separated from friends or watching parents struggle to rebuild their lives. In 2024, disasters were linked to more than 14.5 million new internal displacements of children worldwide, mostly due to storms and floods (UNICEF, 2025).
In 2025, climate hazards disrupted schooling for more than 171 million students, approximately one in ten globally (UNICEF, 2026). This is where the concept of loss and damage becomes important. It includes not only the economic costs of climate-related events, but also losses such as access to education, community connections, cultural ties and a child’s sense of safety and belonging. Climate action, therefore, cannot stop at rebuilding roads and homes. Recovery must also support children in returning to school, accessing healthcare and regaining a sense of stability.
COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, offers an opportunity to place these needs more firmly within discussions on climate finance and implementation. The Loss and Damage Fund is now in place under the UN climate process to support vulnerable developing countries facing the economic and non-economic impacts of climate change (UNFCCC, 2026). However, its success will depend on whether support reaches affected communities and children.
The ADN Junior Champion Magazine (ISSN 2759-0380) (ADN, 2023) serves as an example demonstrating how children’s voices explain loss and damage. As of October 2026 it has featured six volumes with 57 articles and contributors. Their stories highlight disrupted education, displacement, separation from loved ones and the loss of familiar places.
The experiences demonstrate how disasters impact children’s sense of belonging. In Volume 4, Cheng Wei Jie from Taiwan recalls being “terrified that all southbound trains would be cancelled” (Avoidable Deaths Network, 2023) as a typhoon approached. Similarly, in Volume 6, Le Dang Quang from Vietnam describes losing his mother’s old letters and family altar photographs in floods, illustrating that recovery extends beyond rebuilding physical infrastructure. These experiences align with COP31’s principles of “Dialogue, Consensus, and Action”: listening to children’s experiences, incorporating their needs into collective decisions, and translating those decisions into meaningful support for recovery.
At COP31, the discussion should go beyond how much is lost and the cost of rebuilding. It should also consider what happens to a child’s education, safety, identity and future when their home is no longer secure. Children did not create the climate crisis, but they will live with its consequences for the longest. Placing children at the heart of loss and damage is not simply about protecting the future; it is about responding to the reality they are already living today.
References:
Avoidable Deaths Network (2023) ADN Junior Champion Magazine. Available at: https://www.avoidable-deaths.net/junior-champion-magazine/ (Accessed: 25 October 2026).
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (2026) Children’s Climate Risk Report 2026. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/reports/childrens-climate-risk-report-2026 (Accessed: 22 October 2026).
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (n.d.) Child Displacement and Refugees. UNICEF Data. Available at: https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-migration-and-displacement/displacement/ (Accessed: 22 October 2026).
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (2026) Learning Interrupted: Global Snapshot of Climate-Related School Disruptions in 2025. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/reports/learning-interrupted (Accessed: 22 October 2026).
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (n.d.) Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage. Available at: https://unfccc.int/fr/node/639763 (Accessed: 22 October 2026).