LocationsClimate chaos is displacing millions
World Refugee Day
June 19, 2025
DIsplacement numbers are at a record high. Climate action measures must address the root causes.
Photo: UNDP Sudan
Climate displacement is here, it is growing, and it is ripping apart lives across continents. Without serious investment in resilience, more lives will be lost, more communities uprooted, and more hard-won progress wiped out.
We’re already seeing the fallout. Last October, Hurricane Milton forced nearly six million people in the United States from their homes, the highest storm related displacement ever recorded. In Brazil, floods engulfed an area the size of the United Kingdom, displacing 775,000 people. In Chad, more people were driven from their homes by flooding in one year than in the past 15 combined.
By the end of 2024, there were 46 million people displaced by disaster. That’s nearly double the yearly average over the past decade. And it’s not just numbers: behind each one is a life derailed, a home lost, a future on hold.
In Chad, more people were driven from their homes by flooding in one year than in the past 15 combined.
Photo: UNOCHA Chad/Federica Gabellini
In 2023, 70 percent of refugees and asylum seekers came from countries highly vulnerable to climate change. While fragile states are hit the hardest, they receive the least support. These same countries get just US$2 per person from major climate funds. In more stable countries, that figure jumps to $162.
This isn’t just unjust, it’s dangerously short-sighted. Every $1 spent on adaptation and resilience generates $10 in future benefits. The longer the world delays, the bigger the bill. The more people are uprooted, the deeper the instability.
But there is a way forward. Designing climate action measures that simultaneously address issues of peace, security and displacement can help address root causes. UNDP has longstanding experience linking climate action with crisis response and recovery. Through this engagement we see concrete examples of where countries are advancing powerful solutions.
In Yemen, solar-powered water systems are easing tensions over scarce resources.
Photo: UNDP Yemen
In Yemen, solar-powered water systems are easing tensions over scarce resources before they erupt. Women are running solar businesses that now power homes of more than 21,000 families, as part of a UNDP project with support from KSrelief.
In the Sahel, where droughts and land loss are driving conflict and displacement, clean energy and land restoration are making a difference. In Mali, water points restored with Danish support are easing pressure in daily life for over 1,700 households in conflict-hit areas.
In Jordan, with support from Germany and the EU, solar plants in Azraq and Za’atari now power the lives of over 100,000 Syrian refugees, while easing tensions over shared resources in one of the most water-scarce countries on Earth. Clean energy here is not just a climate solution, it brings peace.
Japan supports recovery in conflict-affected areas, from solar-powered ice machines for war widows and ex-fighters in the Philippines' Bangsamoro region, to solar energy, irrigation, and jobs for displaced families in Sudan.
UNDP works with displaced Sudanese families to provide solar energy, irrigation, and jobs.
Photo: UNDP Sudan
At the 2023 Global Refugee Forum, UNDP joined UNHCR and over 60 other partners in pledging to reduce climate risks and support communities hosting displaced people. But ambition alone is not enough. Investment must follow. Funding should support cutting emissions but also build stability, inclusion, and community-driven action.
As the world moves toward COP30 in Brazil and the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, we face an increasingly urgent call to put climate-driven displacement on the global agenda. That means finance, robust partnerships, and ensuring real inclusion of the people on the frontlines in designing a more resilient path.
World Refugee Day is a moment to honour the contributions of refugees and the communities that host them. It is also an opportunity to shed light on the growing displacement from climate change. What is needed now is sustained investment to address root causes and reduce future costs. In an age of accelerating climate chaos, building resilience is more than smart, it’s our shared survival.
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