The Growing Double Crisis

Every 10 seconds, another child dies—8,500 children every single day. That’s 3.1 million children under five who lose their lives every year, not from bullets or disasters, but from an invisible killer: malnutrition. It’s the leading cause of death for children under five—more than all wars, all natural disasters, and all diseases combined. According to UNICEF, malnutrition is no longer just the result of poverty or poor choices. It is increasingly the deadly outcome of a broken climate. This is the double crisis of our time: climate and hunger—fueling and worsening each other. As the earth heats, rains vanish or flood. Crops fail. Soil degrades. Local gardens turn to dust. Staple foods lose essential nutrients. What remains on the plate is often too little—and too weak—to nourish a child through their first 1,000 days of life, when brain, body, and immunity develop fastest. It is happening now in the world’s most climate-vulnerable communities—refugee camps, drought-stricken regions, and flood-ruined villages.