In 2023, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child issued General Comment No. 26, recognising climate change and environmental degradation as urgent and systemic threats to children’s rights. It called on states to integrate child-sensitive measures into their climate responses and to treat children as rights-holders. This recognition is crucial for Bangladesh, where children are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Bangladesh has been described as ‘ground zero’ for climate change, where rising seas, intensified cyclones, recurrent floods, and riverbank erosion are not distant forecasts but lived realities. For children, these environmental shifts translate into a daily struggle for survival, development, and dignity, turning climate change into a full-scale child-rights crisis. In fact, UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Index has identified Bangladeshi children as among the most climate-exposed in the world, with frequent floods and storms contaminating water sources, destroying homes and schools, and exacerbating existing vulnerabilities. Climate change is also driving incidents of child labour or early marriages in coastal regions. By 2050, one in seven people in Bangladesh will be displaced by climate change, including children. This scale of disruption starkly undermines the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)’s guarantees of the rights to life (Art. 6), health (Art. 24), education (Arts. 28–29), and an adequate standard of living (Art. 27).

In 2024, nearly 2 million people were affected by devastating floods, almost half of them children, and UNICEF issued urgent appeals for child-focused emergency assistance. The plight of Rohingya refugee children in Cox’s Bazar further exemplifies how climate risk and humanitarian vulnerability collide. Nearly half a million children live in overcrowded camps built on deforested hillsides. In August 2023, a mudslide triggered by heavy monsoon rains killed a young child and her mother, underscoring the lethal combination of unstable terrain and fragile shelter. Each monsoon season, floods and landslides damage learning centres, disrupt access to clean water, and heighten disease risks. For Rohingya children, already deprived of citizenship and secure futures, this not only threatens survival but also erodes fundamental rights.

To address immediate and urgent challenges posed by climate change, Bangladesh has invested heavily in adaptation and community-based resilience programmes. Yet, from a child rights perspective, existing climate policies fall short of fully integrating UNCRC obligations, and significant gaps remain in implementation. Disaster risk reduction efforts rarely incorporate child-centred design, such as child-friendly cyclone shelters, safe evacuation routes for children, or concrete plans to ensure the continuity of their education during prolonged climate disruptions. Health and WASH services in high-risk zones also remain inadequate, leaving children disproportionately exposed to preventable diseases. Meanwhile, psychosocial and mental-health support is largely overlooked, despite the profound trauma children experience in the aftermath of disasters.

General Comment No. 26 makes it clear that these are not optional enhancements, but rather core obligations. Bangladesh must ensure that its climate policies are consistent with the best interests of the child (Art. 3) and the non-discrimination (Art. 2) provisions of the UNCRC, while also guaranteeing children’s access to justice and accountability mechanisms for rights violations. This could be achieved through concrete measures like strengthening child-centred disaster risk education, expanding health and sanitation services in vulnerable areas, and integrating mental health and psychological support into emergency responses. Institutionalising children’s voices in the local and national climate policy planning can also be crucial.

However, Bangladesh’s current adaptation policies depend heavily on resources, institutional capacity, and political prioritisation. As one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, Bangladesh already allocates a substantial portion of its national budget to climate adaptation. But without adequate technical expertise, long-term financing, and local-level institutional support, scaling up child-centred adaptation remains challenging. This is where international cooperation becomes indispensable, as it can greatly facilitate climate-resilient development. Targeted climate finance, such as the Green Climate Fund or the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage, technology transfer, capacity-building for child-focused risk assessments, and inclusive planning processes, can significantly strengthen Bangladesh’s ability to meet its UNCRC obligations. Global actors, especially high-emission countries, have a responsibility to support these efforts, ensuring that children in climate-impacted regions are not left behind.

From Rohingya camps to flood-affected villages, children’s lives illustrate how climate injustice operates at the most intimate level. Protecting Bangladesh’s children from climate harm is not a humanitarian imperative; it is a matter of binding legal duty. The UNCRC framework, reinforced by General Comment No. 26, obliges Bangladesh to place children at the centre of climate governance. Institutionalising children’s voices in local and national climate policymaking, supported by sustained international cooperation, can move Bangladesh beyond incremental improvements and toward a genuinely child-rights-centred climate resilience framework. Ensuring children’s rights amid accelerating climate risks is ultimately the strongest investment in Bangladesh’s future.