Wrong, Deutsche Welle and UNICEF, Climate Change Is Not Hampering Kids Education in Poor Countries
By
Linnea Lueken
January 27, 2025
A recent article posted at German news site Deutsche Welle (DW) titled “Heat waves, floods, and cyclones disrupt school for millions,” discusses a report from the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) which claims that poorer countries are the hardest hit by the so-called climate crisis in the form of extreme weather in 2024, leading to disruptions in the education of underprivileged children. This is false. While it is true that extreme weather events can do greater harm to people in poorer countries, it is not true that extreme weather events are becoming more frequent or severe there. Therefore, climate change can’t be an “overlooked” cause of disrupted education as they claim. The reason people in poorer countries suffer more when natural disasters strike is precisely because they are poor and lack the technologies, infrastructure, and institutions that have arisen in developed countries, in part a result of fossil fuel dependent economic progress, to anticipate, face, respond to and recover from extreme weather events.
The DW post explained that extreme weather caused disruptions in school for “approximately 242 million children across 85 countries in 2024,” according to UNICEF, and goes on to say that “
- ne in seven students could not attend school due to heat waves, floods, cyclones, and other extreme weather conditions.” Most of the children affected were from poorer countries, and UNICEF reported that the worst hit areas were in Southeast Asia.
It is a fact that extreme weather hits the poor worse, a fact commonly but falsely linked to climate change. Regardless of climate change’s alleged effects on weather, people who live in underdeveloped areas with limited access to stable utilities like electricity, and modern structures and infrastructure, suffer greater harm when natural disasters strike than people in relatively wealthier countries.
https://climaterealism.com/2025/01/wrong-deutsche-welle-and-unicef-climate-change-is-not-hampering-kids-education-in-poor-countries/
