UNDP Yemen: How climate change undermines every aspect of childhood in Yemen

According to UNICEF, nearly one billion children globally are at extremely high risk from the impacts of climate change. In Yemen, these risks are not distant projections - they are lived realities, unfolding daily against the backdrop of ongoing conflict.

Yemen stands at the epicenter of a devastating convergence between conflict and climate change. As one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, it is grappling with more frequent and intense climate shocks, including flash floods, droughts, and extreme temperatures. These environmental hazards are adding to the difficulties children in Yemen already face.

Health and nutrition: A vicious cycle of vulnerability

The climate crisis is a key driver of Yemen’s health and nutrition emergency. Prolonged droughts and erratic rainfall have severely reduced agricultural productivity, deepening food insecurity for millions. Over 17 million people now face acute food shortages, including pregnant and breastfeeding women suffering from acute malnutrition, and approximately 3.5 million children under five.

Floods, growing in frequency and intensity, are destroying already fragile water and sanitation systems. Contaminated water sources fuel outbreaks of preventable diseases like cholera and diarrhea. For children who are already malnourished, these illnesses can quickly become fatal. It is a brutal cycle: hunger weakens immunity, disease spreads through unclean water, and without proper care, the most vulnerable do not survive.

Displacement and protection: Amplified risk

Climate change is increasingly a driver of displacement in Yemen. Alongside conflict, environmental disasters are forcing families to flee their homes. Displacement tears children from their communities, schools, and support systems, exposing them to heightened risks of exploitation, violence, and neglect.

Overcrowded and under-resourced camps offer little protection. Meanwhile, climate-driven scarcity of water, land, and food often triggers tensions between displaced families and host communities, placing children in environments where the threat of conflict is ever-present.

Girls on the frontlines of the climate crisis

The burden of the climate crisis does not fall equally. Girls bear a disproportionate share of its consequences. As water becomes harder to find, girls are sent on longer, riskier journeys to collect it, often in extreme heat. These treks expose them to violence, exploitation, and serious injury.

The added pressure also leads many girls to drop out of school, cutting their education short and narrowing their future opportunities.

Education and livelihoods: A compromised future

Climate change is dismantling the educational and economic prospects of an entire generation. Environmental shocks disrupt learning, schools are damaged by floods, and displacement uproots children from their classrooms. For many families, the struggle to meet basic needs means education becomes a luxury they can no longer afford. At the same time, climate-induced poverty pushes many into child labor or, in the worst cases, into joining in conflict.

Today, over 4.5 million school-aged children in Yemen are out of school. The long-term implications are profound. Without access to education, children lose their chance to build better futures, for themselves and for their communities.

The economic outlook is equally troubling. The World Bank warns that under worsening climate scenarios, Yemen’s GDP could shrink by an average of 3.9% per year by 2040, driven largely by losses in agriculture and damaged infrastructure. This decline will directly affect the livelihoods of today’s children, further entrenching poverty and inequality.

Addressing the climate crisis is no longer optional; it is essential to protecting children’s rights, their futures, and their very survival.

Investment in climate adaptation, including access to clean water, resilient healthcare, safe education, and child protection is critical. At the same time, global action to reduce emissions and limit global warming is essential to prevent an already dire situation from becoming irreversible. Together with partners like the Global Environment Facility, Green Climate Fund, Germany, Japan, and the UN Environment Programme, UNDP is supporting efforts to ensure that climate action and solutions in Yemen are inclusive, responsive and sustainable for future generations.