Climate Change: Beyond Opinion, Into Evidence
Climate change is frequently discussed through political, economic, or ideological lenses. Yet the evidence supporting its existence and impacts comes from a different source entirely: science.
For decades, researchers have documented rising global temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, more frequent and intense heatwaves, and increasing climate-related risks. The findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), national meteorological agencies, insurance risk models, and international organizations all point in the same direction. Climate change is not simply a future concern; it is a present reality whose effects are already being measured across societies and economies.
Among those most affected are children.
The recently published UNICEF Children’s Climate Risk Report 2026 provides one of the most comprehensive assessments to date of children’s exposure to climate hazards worldwide. Using new geographic and demographic data, the report maps where children face multiple climate threats and how these threats interact with access to health care, education, water, sanitation, nutrition, and social protection services.
The Scale of Children’s Climate Exposure
The findings are striking.
According to UNICEF, nearly 1.1 billion children, almost half of the world’s child population, are exposed to at least three overlapping climate hazards. More than 4 million children face as many as six simultaneous climate threats. Almost all children globally are exposed to at least one major climate-related hazard
The scale alone demands attention, but the individual hazards are equally concerning.
UNICEF estimates that approximately 1.8 billion children are exposed to agricultural or meteorological droughts, conditions that can threaten food production, nutrition, water security, and livelihoods. Around 1.5 billion children are exposed to increasingly frequent, prolonged, or severe heatwaves, while 1.2 billion are exposed to extreme heat conditions. In addition, 662 million children live in areas exposed to tropical storms, 337 million are exposed to riverine flooding, and 33 million face risks from coastal flooding.
These figures demonstrate that climate-related risks are not isolated challenges affecting a small number of communities. They are becoming a defining feature of childhood for a significant proportion of the world’s young population.
Why Children Are Disproportionately Affected
Climate hazards affect everyone, but they do not affect everyone equally.
Children are especially vulnerable because they are still physically, emotionally, and cognitively developing. They depend heavily on systems that climate hazards can disrupt, including education, healthcare, nutrition programs, and access to clean water. When these systems fail, even temporarily, the consequences can extend well beyond the immediate event.
Heatwaves increase the risk of dehydration and heat-related illnesses. Droughts can lead to food insecurity and malnutrition. Storms and floods can damage homes, schools, and medical facilities while displacing families and disrupting communities. Climate-related events can also increase exposure to infectious diseases and create long-term psychological stress.
Importantly, these hazards often overlap.
A community experiencing drought may simultaneously face food insecurity, economic hardship, water shortages, and educational disruption. The cumulative effect can be far greater than the impact of any single event considered in isolation. This is one of the key insights of the UNICEF report.
Climate Risk Is Also a Social and Economic Risk
The report highlights an important reality: climate change is not solely an environmental issue.
It is increasingly a challenge for public health, education, social development, and economic resilience. The consequences extend far beyond rising temperatures or changing weather patterns. They affect the systems that enable communities to function and individuals to thrive
This is why climate-related risks are becoming central to decision-making across multiple sectors.
Governments are investing in adaptation measures. Businesses are incorporating climate risks into long-term planning. Investors are assessing climate resilience. Insurance companies are recalculating risks and premiums based on increasingly sophisticated climate models.
These developments are not driven by ideology. They are responses to measurable and observable realities.
Why Tourism Should Pay Attention
For tourism professionals, the findings of the Children’s Climate Risk Report are particularly relevant.
Tourism depends fundamentally on healthy destinations. Successful destinations require functioning ecosystems, resilient infrastructure, reliable water supplies, cultural vitality, and thriving local communities. Many of the same climate risks identified by UNICEF directly threaten these foundations.
Heatwaves can reduce the attractiveness of destinations and create health risks for residents and visitors alike. Droughts can intensify competition for water resources. Floods and storms can damage tourism infrastructure and disrupt travel flows. Wildfires can affect landscapes, biodiversity, air quality, and destination reputation.
The tourism industry is already experiencing many of these challenges. As climate-related events become more frequent and more severe, the sector’s ability to adapt and build resilience will become increasingly important.
At the same time, tourism possesses an often-overlooked capacity to contribute positively to communities and environments when managed responsibly.
A Regenerative Perspective
This is where the concept of regenerative tourism becomes particularly relevant.
Unlike traditional sustainability approaches, which often focus on minimizing negative impacts, regenerative tourism seeks to generate positive outcomes for destinations and communities.
The question shifts from“How can we do less harm?” to“How can we leave a place better than we found it?”
Applied to the challenges highlighted by UNICEF, a regenerative approach encourages tourism stakeholders to strengthen rather than merely preserve the systems on which communities depend. This may include supporting ecosystem restoration, protecting biodiversity, investing in community resilience, improving resource management, promoting environmental education, and creating long-term value for local populations.
The distinction may appear subtle, but it is profound.
The challenge described by UNICEF is not simply to reduce future damage. It is to help create conditions in which future generations can thrive despite increasing environmental pressures.
A Shared Responsibility for Future Generations
The Children’s Climate Risk Report 2026 ultimately delivers a message grounded in evidence rather than ideology. The data demonstrates that climate hazards are affecting an unprecedented number of children and that these impacts extend far beyond the natural environment. They influence health, education, safety, opportunity, and future prosperity.
For tourism professionals, the report serves as a reminder that destinations are more than products, attractions, or economic assets. They are places where people live, learn, work, and raise families.
As SKÅL Europe advances its 2026 focus on Regenerative Tourism, UNICEF’s findings provide a compelling context for action. Regeneration is not only about enhancing destinations for visitors. It is about strengthening the long-term capacity of places and communities to flourish in a changing world.
Ultimately, the children most exposed to climate risks today will inherit the consequences of the decisions made by current generations. Whether those consequences are defined by vulnerability or resilience will depend, in part, on the choices we make now.
And that is a responsibility shared by all sectors, including tourism.
Sources: UNICEF Children’s Climate Risk Report 2026 and Children’s Climate Risk Report 2026 Executive Summary.
