UNICEF Director-General urges leaders at the upcoming COP29 summit in Azerbaijan to increase climate funding for children.
The United Nations says more than 420,000 children in the Amazon basin have been affected by “dangerous levels” of water scarcity and drought in three countries.
The unprecedented drought, ongoing since last year, is negatively impacting indigenous and other communities in Brazil, Colombia and Peru that depend on boat trips, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said ahead of the COP29 climate change summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. .
“We are witnessing the destruction of the essential ecosystem on which families depend, leaving many children without access to adequate food, water, health care and schools,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement on Thursday.
“We must mitigate the effects of extreme climate crises to protect children today and future generations. The health of the Amazon affects the health of all of us.”
The UN agency called on leaders to take decisive action, including a “significant increase” in climate funding for children.
She added that the resulting food insecurity in the Amazon region increases the risk of malnutrition among children, while lack of access to drinking water can lead to a rise in infectious diseases among children.
In the Amazon region of Brazil alone, more than 1,700 schools and 760 medical clinics were forced to close or became inaccessible due to falling river levels.
In Colombia’s Amazon region, lack of drinking water and food forced 130 schools to suspend classes. In Peru, more than 50 clinics were inaccessible.
UNICEF said it needs $10 million in the coming months to help stricken communities in those three countries, including by providing water and sending health teams.
Weather monitoring agencies, such as NASA’s Earth Observatory and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, say drought across the Amazon Basin since the latter half of last year was caused by the 2023-2024 El Niño climate phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean.
Insufficient rainfall and shrinking vital rainforest rivers have exacerbated forest fires, disrupted hydropower generation and dried up crops in parts of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
Brazilian experts said the climate crisis was also to blame.
Despite a series of environmental setbacks across the Amazon, Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva said it was “possible” for governments to “confront climate change.”
Silva made the statement on Wednesday after the government announced that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by about 30 percent in the 12 months to July compared to the same period a year earlier — the smallest area destroyed in the world’s largest rainforest in nine years.
When Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva returned as Brazil’s president two years ago, he promised to strengthen enforcement of environmental laws to rein in deforestation, which had skyrocketed under his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.
“What was presented here today is the fruit of our work,” Silva said.
In July, Brazil’s northwestern neighbor, Colombia, announced a historic 36% reduction in deforestation in 2023.
