LMIC

In a recent press release, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that approximately one billion children are at extremely high risk of experiencing impacts of the climate crisis; many will experience multiple climate shocks combined with poor essential services such as water, sanitation and healthcare. At the same time, while air pollution is decreasing in many high-income countries and some middle-income countries, it remains very high in large areas of low- and middle-income countries in which the majority of the world’s children reside.

Children from poorer countries and from economically and socially marginalized groups within countries may be particularly vulnerable to climatic and environmental hazards. To date, there has not been a global study of the degree to which the ill effects of extreme climate and air pollution exposures are borne differently by children according to individual, family, and overall country characteristics. Focusing on low- and middle-income countries, this project advances and disseminates scientific knowledge about how global childhood inequalities condition both the risks of experiencing climate hazards and extreme air pollution and the implications, once exposed.