One in five children in the world, or 466 million, live in areas that experience at least twice as many days of extreme heat each year as they did six decades ago, according to a UNICEF analysis released on Wednesday. In 16 countries, they now experience one more month of extremely hot days per year than in the 1960s, defined as exceeding 35 degrees Celsius. In South Sudan, for example, children experience an average of 165 days of extreme heat per year, compared with 110 days in the 1960s, while in Paraguay the number has dropped from 36 to 71 days.
Other countries with increases of more than 30 days are Benin, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Togo, Mali, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mauritania, Tunisia, Central African Republic, Niger, Gambia, Jordan and Guinea. Catherine Russell, executive director of the organization, underlines in a statement why high temperatures are more dangerous for children: “Children are not small adults. Their bodies are much more vulnerable to extreme heat. Young bodies heat up faster and cool down more slowly. Extreme heat is especially dangerous for babies because of their faster heart rates.”
UNICEF analysts have compared the average daily temperatures of the 1960s with those of the years 2020 to 2024, taken from the system ERA5, the meteorological model of Copernicus The data is compiled using observation data from satellites and ground sensors and is made available openly by the EU. The temperature data were consulted on 10 July, which means they do not even cover the entire month, which has seen the highest average daily temperature recorded on the Earth (land and sea surface) so far: 17.16 degrees Celsius.
The study, according to the UN agency, “issues a stark warning about the speed and scale at which extremely hot days are increasing for nearly 500 million children around the world, many of them without the infrastructure or services necessary to cope.” Unicef had already warned less than a month ago of the “disproportionate impact” of heat on children, and urged governments to act against the effects of climate change.
“This report is a summary of what we have seen in our daily lives, of how the days have become hotter as the years go by. Its value lies in taking historical data from the 1960s and making a comparison and noticing the difference in temperature ranges and extreme heat,” explains Reis López, UNICEF regional advisor in Latin America and the Caribbean for climate, environment, energy and disaster risk reduction.
“In many of the countries in West and Central Africa, the impact is extremely harsh. For them, for example, it can be an additional month of extreme heat, 30 more days of 35º heat, and that has very significant repercussions on children, psychologically, physiologically, and in terms of access to services,” López explains in a video call from Panama City.
Indeed, the analysis released by UNICEF on Wednesday shows that children in these two African regions are the most exposed to extremely hot days and those who suffer the most significant increases over time. 39% of the total, or 123 million children, now experience an average of at least 95 days with temperatures above 35 degrees, reaching up to 212 days in Mali, 202 in Niger, 198 in Senegal and 195 in Sudan. In Latin America and the Caribbean, almost 48 million children live in areas that experience twice as many days of extreme heat.
Frank Dejongh (UNICEF)
In the Europe and Central Asia region, the absolute number of days of extreme heat has increased from 5.8 to 9.7; 37 million children live in areas where days of extreme heat have doubled, and 28 million in places where they have quadrupled. The frequency of annual heat waves has also doubled in the region, from five in the 1960s to 11.5 in 2020-24; they last longer (5.3 days, compared with 4.4 in the 1960s) and are more severe. Some 55 million children live in areas where heat wave frequency has doubled, and 7 million in places where it has quadrupled. A July report by the agency estimates that nearly 400 child deaths a year in this region are related to heat waves.
In Spain, the average number of days above 35 degrees rose from 4 to 16 in the period analysed. In total, 5.4 million children live in areas where the number of days of extreme heat has doubled, and 4.9 million in places where it has quadrupled. As for heat waves, the number has gone from five per year in the 1960s to nearly 14 in 2020-24, that is, almost three times as many. 85% of Spanish children, that is, 6.4 million, live in areas where the number of heat waves has doubled, and 44%, 3.3 million, in places where they have quadrupled. In addition, their duration has increased from 4.4 to 5.5 days.
The impact on development
“We have the general idea that children are small adults, but their bodies are actually developing. They require much more water, more food, more fresh air to develop per kilo of weight, and every day it gets hotter has a direct impact on well-being, health; on cognitive issues too, because there is an impact on neurological development, and also on the gestation of pregnant women. Exposure to these hours of heat has a strong physiological impact, especially if there are no cooling measures available,” warns López.
“Another very important point is the impact it has on the services side,” he adds. “One would think that it is only a health issue, but no, when one thinks of South Asia, the Middle East, Central Africa, on hot days and heat waves, for example, many schools close, many children do not have access to education, and if there are also no basic social services, especially water and nutrition, then they have harsh impacts. If they become repetitive, as we have seen with these heat waves that are more intense, more frequent and last longer, they have a direct impact on poverty levels, limiting their cognitive development, their educational development and general well-being. It is quite worrying,” he adds.
UNICEF reminds that in the coming months, all member states of the Paris Agreement will have to submit new national climate plans. “Governments must act to control rising temperatures, and there is a unique opportunity to do so right now. As governments draw up their national climate action plans, they can do so with ambition and the knowledge that today’s children and future generations will have to live in the world they leave behind,” said Russell.
But in addition to reducing greenhouse gases, López advocates equal priority and in parallel adaptation of services to the high temperatures caused by climate change. “We have to prepare for these increases that will create a new reality. We urge that new infrastructures and services be adapted to the new reality.”
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