2025 showed why children must be placed at the core of the climate narrative

Climate change is often spoken of as the unfolding of distant spectacles — gigantic glaciers melting in the high mountain reaches, millions of tonnes of ice caps disappearing in the polar regions, rising sea levels engulfing low-lying coastal areas, monstrous cyclones devastating settlements by the seas. The real human cost of climate change is often side-lined, even buried, under such awe-inspiring spectacles — the cost, which is being paid here and now, within the communities, particularly in remote geographies and away from media glare. And, as usual, the biggest burden of this human cost is borne by the most vulnerable and the underserved.  

While there is growing acknowledgement that climate change is no longer a future threat, an uncomfortable question remains unanswered — who suffers the most when disasters strike? The answer, again and again, is children. If they are among the most affected, why do policy attention and on-ground interventions often fail to centre around children’s issues?

The answer lies in revisiting the visible and invisible impacts of recent climate crises.

A year of disasters, visible and invisible

The year 2025 has been marked by widespread devastation across North and coastal India. Flash floods and landslides induced by the hyperactive monsoon, and embankment breaches disrupted normal life in Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, and Uttarakhand. The Andamans, coastal Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh were no exceptions in the face of back-to-back cyclones in the Bay of Bengal. Lives were lost, homes destroyed, and livelihoods washed away. Yet, the most profound suffering often remained hidden — borne by children.

In Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, for instance, a series of cloudbursts and flash floods in the upper reaches severely affected children and their families. Timely rescue, relief, and rehabilitation efforts by the local administration, state disaster management forces, and the local community-based organisations operating on the ground helped families slowly return to a semblance of normalcy.

But as climate change drives more frequent and intense disasters, such events are fast becoming the new normal.

Evidence from the ground

To better understand these challenges, Child Rights and You (CRY) conducted a study on Climate-Induced Hazards & Health Impacts on Children across Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The findings reveal how climate events adversely affect children’s health through injuries, disease outbreaks, respiratory illnesses, mental stress, and nutritional deficiencies — often aggravated by disrupted healthcare services and limited emergency preparedness.

Another key resource, the Training Manual on Child Rights and Child Protection During Disasters and Emergencies, developed by the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) in collaboration with CRY, estimates that 24.1 million children are affected by climate events every year. Recognising the vulnerability, the Union government launched the National Programme on Climate Change and Human Health (NPCCHH) in 2019 to mitigate health impacts.

Yet, health risks are only part of the picture. Socio-economic and infrastructural failures compound children’s vulnerability.

The cascading impacts on childhood

As experience tells us, the damage does not end as life limps back to normalcy after an acute climate event. Beyond loss of livelihood, displacement, disease outbreaks, and forced migration, children face cascading and long-term consequences. School closures and missed examinations disrupt education, sometimes permanently pushing them out of classrooms. Anxiety, trauma, stress, domestic violence, and abuse tend to rise during prolonged crises.

When families lose their livelihoods, it is children whose education, health and nutrition, and overall safety are majorly compromised. CRY’s experiences gathered from its intervention areas show significant increases in school dropouts, spikes in child malnutrition, and heightened vulnerability to unsafe environments in the aftermath of such disasters.

Climate disasters also disrupt essential services meant for children. During emergencies, many children are deprived of the regular immunisation programmes; hot cooked meals at the midday meals and early childhood education at ICDS centres. Elder children face different but equally grave risks — severe, almost unbridgeable gaps in learning outcomes due to prolonged interruptions in schooling, increased vulnerability to child labour, and the looming threat of child marriage and trafficking.

From South to North, climate-induced suffering connects children across the country. Yet, its intensity and form vary across geography and time, making the crisis complex and deeply unequal.

What policies promise

These realities have placed heightened expectations on central and state governments to respond decisively. Thankfully, the government has placed some effective policy mechanisms in place, to address vulnerabilities of children through child-centric disaster policies, school safety guidelines, integrating climate education into curricula, strengthening health systems for climate-sensitive illnesses, with key efforts by NIDM in collaboration with non-profits like CRY focusing on community resilience, early warnings, and ‘Home-to-School’ safety, recognising children’s unique vulnerabilities in the time of crises. 

Key policy frameworks and initiatives by the Union government include Child-Centric Disaster Risk Reduction (CCDRR) — an initiative anchored by NIDM with a dedicated centre focusing on child-specific needs in disasters, training officials and care givers on life-cycle approaches, school-safety, mental and psychosocial well-being, and child rights in disaster management programming.

National School Safety Policy Guidelines focus on making schools resilient to climate hazards and acute weather events, integrating risk education into the curriculum, and building capacity for preparedness among students and staff, linking school safety to broader government schemes.

National Action Plan for Climate Change (NAPCC) aims to prepare state health systems for climate-sensitive issues like severe heat stress, vector-borne diseases, and air pollution, including developing training modules and curriculum integration.

Additionally, the Department of School Education & Literacy, in coordination with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), has issued guidelines to promote disaster resilience in school infrastructure.

The question that must guide every decision

While policies do exist, their true impact lies in robust implementation and in achieving lasting changes in the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of the civil society. Efforts in child health, nutrition, education, and protection must be integrated with climate action and child rights at the level of service providers as well as among the people at large. Only by addressing these together can we ensure the full realisation of children’s rights.

Practical steps include adapting academic calendars to climate disruptions, strengthening distance-learning support, training frontline workers and communities to address physical and psychosocial needs, and investing in climate-resilient school and supply infrastructure. Successful models, such as Green School initiatives in Tamil Nadu, demonstrate what is possible and deserve replication across regions.

As governments draft policies, allocate money and implement programmes on the ground, the rudimentary question that must guide every effort is do these actions truly protect children and safeguard their future?

Until the answer is an unequivocal yes, climate action in India will remain incomplete.

Puja Marwaha is the CEO, CRY – Child Rights and You

Views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth