The Coldest Year of the Rest of Their Lives: Protecting children from the escalating impacts of heatwaves

To help protect children, UNICEF urges governments across Europe and Central Asia to:

• Incorporate heatwave mitigation and adaptation into National Determined Contributions (NDC), National Adaptation Plans (NAP), and Disaster Risk Reduction and disaster risk management policies, keeping children at the centre of all plans.
• Invest in primary health care to support prevention, early action, diagnosis, and treatment of heat-related illness among children, including training community health workers and teachers.
• Invest in national climate early warning systems, carry out local environmental assessments, and support emergency preparedness and resilience building initiatives.
• Adapt water, sanitation and hygiene, health, education, nutrition, social protection and child protection services to cope with the impacts of heatwaves.
• Ensure adequate financing to fund interventions that protect children and their families from heatwaves.
• Equip children and young people with climate change education and green skills training.

Science shows that increased temperatures are a result of climate change. UNICEF urges governments across Europe and Central Asia to reduce CO2 emissions to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and double adaptation funding by 2025.