The hottest day on record
170 million children experienced heatwaves in August 2024 - which included the hottest day ever on record
And between July 2023-June 2024, 766 million children were exposed to extreme heatwaves around the world.
That's one child in every three.
Children should be climbing trees, wading in the sea and smelling flowers - not watching the world burn.
That's why we’re working with children and their communities to take down-to-earth action against the climate crisis.
We owe it to children to protect nature, today and for tomorrow
It’s our responsibility to help kids understand what’s happening, and to let them know that change is possible.
Nothing we can do? Try telling that to children.
Answering the big questions about the climate crisis
The greatest love story ever told
Ready to hear a new perspective on climate change?
How are we helping children through the Climate Crisis?
While world leaders sit and talk, we’re working with children to take down-to-earth action.
We’re constructing solar powered water systems. Sewing drought resistant seeds. Restoring natural ecosystems by training families on how to become beekeepers. Planting carbon-absorbing trees to act as floor defences. Training teachers on how to provide eco-lessons. Giving out plastic-collection devices to help get the rivers clean.
Together, we’re reviving the natural world children and their communities depend on.
Putting their love of nature into action
Solomon Islands
Save the Children is working with local experts to help families set up beekeeping businesses.
The bees pollinate mangrove trees, which grow to form a barrier against increasing storms and high tides.
The mangroves are also carbon sponges, helping in the global fight against climate change.
The bees produce sweet honey for farmers like Alison to sell.
It’s a virtuous circle of lasting change.
Indonesia
Save the Children has helped build a a solar-powered water system in Attika’s community, providing clean drinking water and irrigation for the crops they rely on for food.
And we’re teaching farmers sustainable agricultural techniques.
So they can grow food even in an increasingly extreme climate.
UK
Save the Children’s Change Makers – our growing group of young climate campaigners – are fighting for a fairer, greener future.
So children in the UK can enjoy the things we used to do as kids, like wade in rock pools and search for crabs in sea water without fear of falling sick.
Will you join us?
Together, we can create change that lasts for generations to come.
Our 4 step plan to combat climate change for kids
As the biggest threat to children’s lives and futures, we’re committed to doing all we can to tackle the climate crisis.
Advancing our existing programmes
Advancing our existing programmes and testing innovative approaches to help communities and families adapt to climate change is key for supporting children and their families through this ongoing crisis.
Campaigning with Children
Children will be impacted the most as the climate crisis develops. We are campaigning with children to advocate to the international community that the climate crisis is a child rights crisis.
In the world's biggest listening exercise of its kind, Save the Children spoke to more than 54,500 children from 41 countries to learn more about their experiences of climate change and economic inequality, their hopes for the future, and what they think needs to be done to solve these crises.
Collaborating with others
Collaborating with others to accelerate our ambitions. We believe change is a collaborative effort.
Award winning Brazilian photographer Luisa Dörr travelled to Guatemala to document the resilience of girls overcoming the impact of climate change with the help of Save the Children alongside the local community.
Reducing emissions
We are committed to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact as an organisation.
Our key recommendations
Born into the climate crisis
Three girls, born in different areas of the world, with (at least) one thing in common.
They won't let it stop them.
Activities and support on climate change for parents and carers
For children, the climate crisis is something they feel up close. Nature is their world.
That’s why, while world leaders sit and talk, we’re working with children to take down-to-earth action.
Lucy, four, playing outside her home in Malaita Province, the Solomon Islands.
Talking to kids about the climate crisis
It's a big topic. Once we've understood it, we can take action for nature together.
Things to do with kids this summer
Children are putting their love of nature into action. On its own, each action might be small, but like a pebble landing in a pond, it sends ripples out across communities and whole societies.
Activities to make a difference
How does climate change affect children?
From it's impact on hunger and poverty, to the history of the climate crisis, and how it's impacting kids - in their own words. We explore the issues at play around this important topic.
Our latest climate reports
Opinion and thought starters on climate change
Some of our popular blogs and thought starters from staff and volunteers at Save the Children.
This is the new story of climate change
While world leaders sit around and talk, we’re working with children to take down-to-earth action.
Together, we’re reviving the natural world children and their communities depend on – the gardens that bring purpose and beauty to refugee children, the trees that protect villages from flooding, the lakes that provide a way of life for fishing families.
This is the new story of climate change. It is a love story – the most important love story ever told. A story that’s happening everywhere, all at once...
Three things the UK can do to tackle poverty and climate change
All too often, it is children living in the poorest countries who are already experiencing the harsh realities of poverty and who have contributed the least to global greenhouse emissions, that are suffering the most.
But there are solutions. Read about the possibilities.
A letter to my sons (one year later)
Save the Children UK's CEO Gwen Hines shares a letter she wrote to her sons in the face of the hottest UK temperatures on record. She encourages them not to lose hope - and to never stop believing in the possibility of change.
Children's say on climate change
Two summers ago, as temperatures topped 40C in parts of the UK for the first time ever - Megan Lawrence, Kickstart Project Assistant for Save the Children in Wales, reflects on how important it is to listen to the voices of future generations and their concerns on climate change.
Her reflections are just as important - and pressing - today.
Is it morally right to have children in the face of the climate crisis?
This isn't the first time in history that a generation has had to ask whether it is wise or morally acceptable to have children.
The link between the climate crisis and children's lives has never been clearer to see, or more difficult to witness.
Read the blog to find out why one writer at Save made the choice she did.
'We need to work together because we don’t live in the same country, but in the same world.'
- Message shared by a boy participating in a Save the Children dialogue in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
