By reporting the sensational claims of UNICEF, the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano joins in the fearmongering of climate alarmists whose credibility suffers from a lack of scientific facts.

Drawing on UNICEF’s The Children’s Climate Risk Report 2026, the paper’s front-page, June 16 story, “Emergenze climatiche: Il cielo sopra i bam (Climate Emergencies: The Sky Above the Children),” claims that half of the world’s children are “threatened daily” by “extreme climate events.” The article lists the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as a way to mitigate “climate risks.” UNICEF’s report also urges the phasing out of fossil fuels in favor of “renewable” energy.

But are children, or anybody, really endangered by a climate crisis? Let’s see what the data say.

EM-DAT

The EM-DAT database from the University of Louvain’s Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters confirms that natural disasters did not become more frequent from about 2000 onward. Before then, the system for disaster reporting was still in the process of being developed. That means that a rise in the stated number of disasters during the 20^th century reflects better reporting from more stations, rather than an increase in disaster frequency.

For instance, the global percentage of land area affected by drought has been decreasing since 1950. Similarly, in the United States, heat waves peaked in the 1930s, and the severity and frequency of wildfires dropped significantly from 1926 to 2025. The area burned annually by wildfires declined by about 90% since its peak in 1930.

According to worldwide data compiled by Dr. Ryan N. Maue, tropical cyclones, tropical storms, and hurricanes are not becoming more violent or frequent. Since the 1920s, the decadal number of deaths from natural disasters dropped by more than 90% by the 2010s.

With no increase in the severity and frequency of natural disasters, and a dramatic drop in disaster-induced mortality, there simply is no basis for the Vatican newspaper’s sensationalism.

Although recent decades have seen increasing atmospheric concentrations of various greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide, they cannot be blamed for causing “climate emergencies,” as there are none to begin with.

In fact, as an essential gas for life, CO2 better supports plant growth as its atmospheric concentration increases. Plants grow bigger, produce more food, and use water more efficiently, enabling them to better resist drought. NASA has confirmed that Earth has been greening for decades, with higher levels of CO2 responsible for 70% of new growth.

Given these benefits, it is foolish to attempt to reduce levels of carbon dioxide. If anything, more is needed.

It’s also ironic that extreme heat has been included among the “extreme climate events,” given that cold killed more than nine times as many people than heat during 2000–2019.

Ironic

Perhaps even more ironic is UNICEF’s call for “a just transition towards renewable energy,” while claiming to be fighting for children’s rights, considering that child labor has been used in mining the metals required for manufacturing electric vehicles (EVs).

As if that’s not bad enough, the mining of the metals needed for wind and solar energy systems and EVs has resulted in environmental destruction: Wildlife have been killed by the operation of wind and solar installations; the failure of these uniquely unreliable energy systems during times of high demand for electricity has resulted in human deaths; and toxic chemicals have been released by exploding battery storage plants, which were built for “renewable” systems, and by solar panels damaged by storms.

The Vatican newspaper includes in its editorial mission the “encounter between faith and reason,” but taints the meeting of the two with irrational hyperbole.

Hugh Owen, Director of the Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation, said that religion and science “are at odds only when false information from either the science side, or the religion side, or both, enters the mix.” Unfortunately, L’Osservatore Romano has included false information from the science side in its editorial content.