Three in four displaced people live in climate danger zones, UN says

Three-quarters of the world's displaced people live in countries facing severe exposure to climate-related hazards, the United Nations said Friday, calling for urgent action to protect them.

Days before the COP31 climate conference in Turkey, a UN refugee agency report said nearly 90 million refugees and other forcibly displaced people faced severe risks linked to a warming planet.

"Refugees face a double injustice," Anton Leis Garcia, UNHCR's assistant high commissioner for operations, said in a statement.

"Forced to flee conflicts they did not cause, they are now on the frontlines of a climate crisis they have contributed least to." 

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People forced to flee conflict, violence and persecution find themselves in places grappling with severe droughts, deadly floods and extreme heat, the organisation pointed out.

Climate change was also increasingly threatening the prospect of lasting solutions for displaced people, UNHCR said.

It said more than two-thirds of refugees who returned home during the first half of this year went back to countries highly vulnerable to climate hazards.

In Syria, where nearly four million displaced people have recently returned, declining groundwater and climate shocks were threatening recovery, the agency said.

It mentioned flooding along the Euphrates River last May that damaged homes and displaced thousands once again.

Extreme heat was also a growing threat, it said, cautioning that by 2050, one in three refugee settlements across sub-Saharan Africa could face 100 or more days of dangerous heat each year.

Weather-related disasters are meanwhile spurring even more displacement inside countries, causing more than 255 million internal displacements worldwide over the past decade, UNHCR said.

That amounts to 70,000 each day, it pointed out.

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This year's exceptionally strong El Nino was expected to cause even more displacement.

In East Africa, forecasts indicate that severe flooding linked with the weather phenomenon could displace up to three million people across Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda by the end of 2026.

"For millions, climate change is not a distant threat. It is destroying shelters, undermining livelihoods and putting their hopes of rebuilding their lives at risk," Garcia said.

UNHCR said only 10 percent of global climate finance goes to fragile and conflict-affected countries hosting large populations of climate-exposed displaced people.

The organisation said that during COP31 it would call on governments and climate finance institutions to include refugees and other displaced populations in national climate plans and financing mechanisms.

"We cannot allow those who have already lost so much to be left behind in global climate action," Garcia said.