Humanitarian Implications of Climate Change

• Home
• By Theme »
• By Region »
• By Organisation »
• Events »

Featured:

• OCHA: Climate Change
• IRIN: Gathering Storm
• PreventionWeb: Climate Change

RSS Feeds:

• Latest Documents
• Latest Maps

Background

In the coming decades, climate change is expected to exacerbate the risks of disasters, not only from more frequent and intense hazard events, but also through greater vulnerability to the existing hazards. More frequent and intense storms and floods and long-lasting droughts can erode existing community coping capacity to prepare, respond and rebuild after successive hazard events.

The other adverse impacts of climate change, for example on public health, ecosystems, food security, migration will increase the vulnerability of communities to natural hazards of all types. This in turn may also exacerbate the struggle for access to, or control of, scarce resources and increase the likelihood of migration or even conflict.

Any increase in disasters, whether large or small, will threaten development gains and hinder the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals. Many of the countries that are already of humanitarian concern and which have populations that are highly vulnerable will face even greater risks because of the impacts of climate change.