No Escape

Tens of millions of people uprooted by conflict and violence are increasingly left with nowhere to escape from the devastating effects of the global climate crisis.

12 Nov 2024

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The number of displaced people across the world today has never been higher. In the last 10 years, it has almost doubled to more than 120 million people. Although violence and conflict remain the primary causes of displacement, the impact of climate change is immense and growing. Today, about 90 million forcibly displaced people live in countries with high-to-extreme exposure to climate-related hazards, and nearly half of all forcibly displaced people are bearing the burden of both conflict and the adverse effects of climate change. As climate-related hazards intensify over the coming decades, this figure is set to grow significantly. By 2040, the number of countries facing extreme climate-related hazards is expected to rise from the current three to 65, the vast majority of which are hosting displaced populations.

The map shows the world divided into five categories showing the degree that multiple climate hazards are impacting different areas currently. It also shows the location of forcibly displaced populations and countries with conflict-related deaths.

Climate related hazards
LowModerateHighSevereExtreme
Forcibly displaced population

This second map uses the same categories to forecast climate change impacts across the world in 2040. Many more places will be exposed to severe or extreme climate hazards, including areas hosting most of the world’s forcibly displaced.

Climate related hazards
LowModerateHighSevereExtreme

Nowhere safe to go

Forcibly displaced people are increasingly finding themselves with no escape route, as the impacts of climate change not only make their homelands uninhabitable, but also threaten their destinations. In 2023, 45 countries reported displacement linked to conflict, of which 42 also reported displacement from disasters.

In late October 2024, flood water from a nearby river started rising around the Guilmey refugee site in Chad which is housing refugees who fled violence in northern Cameroon triggered by climate-driven scarcity of land and water. ©UNHCR/Andrew McConnell
LowModerateHighSevereExtremeVenezuelaAfghanistanSyrian ArabRepublicUkraineSouthSudanSudanMyanmarDem. Rep.of theCongoSomaliaCentralAfrican Rep.

The 10 countries from which the most refugees have fled are shown here. Taken together, about 35 million have fled these countries to seek asylum elsewhere.

The bubbles represent the number of refugees in each country of asylum.

When we categorize these countries of asylum by climate hazard zones, we can see that many refugees have fled to countries classified as exposed to high or severe climate hazards.

The countries of origin, shown on the left side, are also classified by climate hazard.

The climate crisis is pushing already vulnerable populations from one danger to another. For instance: more than 700,000 refugees have fled Sudan to Chad, a country grappling with high natural hazards, such as heavy rains and flooding.

Hailing from one of the most climate-vulnerable countries, 72 per cent of Myanmar’s internationally displaced people, including registered refugees and asylum-seekers, now find themselves in Bangladesh, where natural hazards are classified as extreme.

Similarly, 86 per cent of internationally displaced Afghans, refugees and asylum-seekers have sought refuge in Iran and Pakistan, countries that are both affected by even higher climate risks than their home country.

The situation will only get worse. We can change the chart to show the forecasted climate hazard class for each country by 2040 when the vast majority of asylum countries will be classified as exposed to either high, severe, or extreme climate hazards.

The climate hazard class for countries of origin is also expected to change for the worse.

From conflict to disaster

Bahadur Khan, a 60-year-old Afghan refugee, has been displaced three times: once by war and twice by catastrophic flooding. The family fled Afghanistan’s civil war in the early 1990s, and then from raging floodwaters during Pakistan’s monsoon rains in 2010 and 2022. In the most recent displacement, the surging Kabul River in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province swept away their home and belongings in minutes, leaving Khan scrambling to find food and clean water and wondering how he could provide for his children.

“That night was unforgettable as our house was inundated within minutes. We had no other option but to leave at once,” Bahadur Khan said.

Afghan refugee Bahadur Khan and his family had only minutes to flee their home in Pakistan’s north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province before it was swept away by flooding. ©USMANGHANI.ORG

Loss on top of loss

Cyclone Mocha, the most severe storm to hit Myanmar in years, caused widespread destruction on the coast of Rakhine State in May 2023. Rakhine was already home to over 228,000 people forced from their homes by violence, including almost 160,000 ethnic Rohingya, who have been living in overcrowded camps since 2012. Ma Phyu Ma and her family, internally displaced Rohingya, lost almost everything they owned to the storm surge, leaving her family with little protection in the summer monsoon season.

“Every little piece lost was precious to me,” she said. “We had very little to begin with. The hut was our shelter. The boat and nets allowed us to fish. The clothes were my source of income. It is painful for me to lose everything.”

Ma Phyu Ma, a 37-year-old internally displaced Rohingya woman, stands amidst debris left behind by Cyclone Mocha in her village. © UNHCR/Reuben Lim Wende

Dangerous heat

Most refugee camps and settlements are forecast to endure twice as many days of extreme heat. Between 2007 and 2016, 108 camps and settlements in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Senegal experienced 100 days or more of dangerous heat.

Average number of days of dangerous heat, per year (2007-2016)
0 days1-14 days15-29 days30-99 days>=100 days
With current trends, this number is expected to jump to 614 camps by 2050, with the top 10 hottest sites experiencing an additional 74 days of dangerous heat.

Average number of days of dangerous heat, per year (2007-2016)
0 days1-14 days15-29 days30-99 days>=100 days

Vicious cycle

More frequent extreme weather events can intensify the root causes of conflict and instability. In fragile and conflict-affected areas, floods and droughts may heighten tensions between displaced populations and host communities by reducing the availability of natural resources such as fresh water and productive land, potentially sparking new conflicts and further displacement, thereby creating a vicious cycle.

Mimi Kiva, 47, at Ichwa camp in Nigeria’s Benue State where she fled in 2021 after armed men killed her husband and daughter and drove her and other villagers from their land. Clashes between communities in Benue State over dwindling supplies of productive land have displaced half a million people over the past decade. ©UNHCR/Colin Delfosse

Sudanese refugees face climate and security risks

The ongoing conflict in Sudan has displaced over 11.5 million people as of early November 2024, including more than 2 million Sudanese hosted in neighbouring countries, with more than 700,000 of those in Chad, one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change.

In eastern Chad, where many refugees are located, heavy rains and flooding routinely destroy shelters and basic infrastructure and contaminate fresh water. Combined with the security risks people face from armed groups along the Sudan-Chad border and limited humanitarian support, the impacts of climate change are exacerbating the already harsh living conditions.

Newly arrived Sudanese refugees shelter from heavy rain at a site in eastern Chad, close to the border with Sudan. ©UNHCR/Jutta Seidel

Climate change creates obstacles to long-term solutions

The impacts of climate change stretch across borders and can trap refugees in cycles of protracted displacement, preventing them from either safely returning home or integrating into their host communities.

Drought forced Fathi Mohamed Ali, 35, to flee her home and take the 15-day journey with her children to reach the Kabasa camp for internally displaced people in Dollow, Somalia. ©UNHCR/Nabil Narch

Drought dashes hopes of return

Following a devastating drought across the arid zone of the Horn of Africa between late 2020 and early 2023, much of the region was then struck by heavy rains and flooding in 2023 and early 2024. In Somalia, natural hazards were often reported more frequently than conflict and insecurity as the reason for internal displacement. In 2022 alone, over 600,000 people were displaced by violent conflict while approximately 1.3 million individuals were internally displaced due to the drought, the highest number in more than a decade.

Number of internally displaced people because of drought (2022)
1,00010,000100,000300,000

Shamsa Amin Ali, 38, fled southern Somalia in March 2022 after her crops and livestock died during the prolonged drought. In earlier years, and despite Somalia’s long-running conflict, Shamsa had coped with occasional drought by moving to a nearby town and returning to her family’s land when the rains resumed. But after the rains failed for five seasons in a row, she made an eight-day trek to Kenya’s Dadaab camps with her 82-year-old mother, children, and extended family. “There was nothing to feed my children. They would cry, and cry, and cry,” she said.

Initially, Shamsa hoped her stay in Dadaab would be temporary. But forecasts of a sixth failed rainy season ended any hopes of returning home. “I cannot go back to Somalia because the challenges are still there,” she said. “The drought is still there. My farm, animals and even my house have been destroyed, so there is nothing to go back to.”

Shamsa Amin Ali arrived to Kenya’s Dadaab camp in March 2022 after prolonged drought forced her to abandon her family’s land in Somalia and any hope of return. ©UNHCR/Charity Nzomo

Sustainable solutions

Solutions to mitigate the increasingly negative impacts of climate change on forced displacement are within reach, but they demand action on multiple fronts.

Including displaced communities

Displaced people are among those most exposed and vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and yet they are rarely consulted or given a seat at the table in the design of strategies and policies. Just 24 of 60 National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and 25 of 166 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) include concrete provisions on displacement in the context of climate change and disasters. Similarly, only seven out of 31 regional strategies for disaster risk reduction (DRR) reference displacement.

Including the insights and lived experiences of displaced people can improve the policies designed to protect them and help them adapt.

Rohingya youth take action in Bangladesh refugee camps

Before Mohammed Anower and his friends got to work, the stream that ran past his family’s shelter in Kutupalong refugee settlement was a fetid river of waste. In the monsoon rains, it quickly overflowed its banks, contributing to the flooding and landslides that devastate this sprawling camp, which lies in an area of Bangladesh prone to increasingly frequent and intense tropical storms. Anower belongs to one of dozens of youth groups across the camp that design and implement projects to combat pollution and raise awareness about climate change. They dredged the stream of waste and planted native trees and grasses along its banks. The results not only reduced flooding, but also created a cleaner and healthier environment and more public space.

“It’s essential for refugees to come together on climate issues,” said Anower. “We all have to work collectively to mitigate the impact of climate change.”

Workers pull trash out of a stream in Kutupalong refugee settlement as part of an initiative spearheaded by Mohammed Anower and his youth group.

Workers pull trash out of a stream in Kutupalong refugee settlement as part of an initiative spearheaded by Mohammed Anower and his youth group. ©UNHCR/Susan Hopper

Including displaced people in conservation efforts

In the coastal city of Turbo, Colombia, community group “The Mangrove Guardians” (Guardianes del Mangle) is working to restore the gnarled trees that grow along the shoreline, providing a natural barrier between land and sea. Over the years, much of the local mangrove forest has been lost to deforestation, pollution and coastal development.

The Guardians include local fishermen whose livelihoods have been impacted by the loss of the mangroves, as well as people displaced by armed conflict. They are working together to plant trees and clean up the area between low and high tide where mangroves grow. Their work has helped improve water flow, reduce pollution, and create a healthier ecosystem. The project is supported by the UNHCR’s Environment and Climate Action Innovation Fund.

Diana Colón, a community leader and Guardians member, said the idea has caught on: “Today, we can see that awareness has grown. Our streets and neighbourhoods are cleaner and more people are eager to get involved.”

“The Mangrove Guardians” are working to restore the local mangrove forest in Turbo, Colombia.

“The Mangrove Guardians” are working to restore the local mangrove forest in Turbo, Colombia. ©UNHCR/Marina Calderon

Closing gaps in climate finance

Communities least responsible for carbon emissions are paying the highest price, and the billions of dollars of climate financing available globally are not reaching displaced people and the communities hosting them. Gaps in climate finance are stark, with 90 per cent of climate finance being spent in middle-income, high-emitting countries. Extremely fragile states receive just $2 per person in annual per capita adaptation funding compared to $161 per person in non-fragile states. This leaves displaced people and their host communities less able to adapt to the growing challenges of climate change.

There is an urgent need for more investment in fragile and conflict-affected settings, including through support for projects designed and implemented by refugee-led organizations.

Average overall funding per capita by country fragility classification (2014-2021)
Investments in solar energy bring sustainable power to refugee camps in Jordan

With funding from the Saudi Fund for Development, the IKEA Foundation and the German Development Bank KfW, UNHCR built solar plants in Jordan’s two largest refugee camps - Za’atari and Azraq, which are home to some 120,000 Syrian refugees – in 2017. They reduced the need for electricity from the national grid by 70 per cent and supplied energy to the camps for 12 hours a day. Last year, UNHCR, together with its German partners, brokered a multi-stakeholder agreement to bring additional renewable energy to the camps to cover the remaining 30 per cent of electricity needs. The Green Deal for Jordan uses energy from a solar plant south of the Jordanian capital, Amman, to supply Za’atari and Azraq. The two camps now run almost exclusively on solar power, reducing carbon emissions by some 15,000 tons per year and allowing refugee households to run basic appliances, such as fans and heaters, in an eco-friendly way.

The solar plant at Jordan’s Azraq camp.

The solar plant at Jordan’s Azraq camp. ©UNHCR/Osama Sabbah

Providing protection

Most people forced to flee by extreme weather stay within their own countries, becoming internally displaced people. In such cases, UNHCR and its partners provide protection and humanitarian assistance. In cases where people are forced to flee across international borders, they may be entitled to protection through the application of international refugee and human rights law.

Read the full report

All data and analysis presented was conducted in collaboration with the following expert organizations, research institutions and refugee-led groups: Alp Analytica; Alliance of Biodiversity International and CIAT (Alliance), Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), CGIAR Initiative on Fragility, Conflict and Migration; German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP); Green Climate Fund (GCF); Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC); IMPACT Initiatives; Montana State University; Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI); Oregon State University; YOUNGO. Special thanks to the Refugee-led Organizations: Community Aid Network and Dadaab Response Association.