Climate change is one of the greatest emergencies of our time. It profoundly and disproportionately affects children, especially those from low and middle-income countries. It  is deeply interconnected with another crisis of global proportion – that of forced migration and displacement. In 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that the greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration  – with millions of people displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and agricultural disruption. The most recent data shows this prognosis to be true: two-thirds of new internal displacements in 2020 were triggered by climate change. Whilst there are numerous studies looking at the impact of climate change on migration and displacement, there is still a need to advance our knowledge on the specific vulnerabilities of children and youth within this context.

Walking into the Eye of the Storm seeks to respond to this knowledge gap and provide a new, child-focused perspective on how climate change is driving migration and displacement. It places children’s voices at the heart of the study, speaking directly to 239 children, from 5 different countries and continents living in different types of climate conditions. The study highlights the scale and immediacy of the climate migration crisis and reminds us of the urgent need to work together, across sectors, to proactively prepare for the challenges ahead.