Climate Change and Disasters

Nepal / Natural disaster/ Portrait of Kamala Sigala, 57 years, old at Selang in Shindupalchok.Her house is completely destroyed. Her father died due to the earthquake. Her husband is still at the hospital. She was working on the field. She is still afraid of the aftershocks.Many of the villages affected by the earthquake are in mountainous regions, served by few if any roads, and where aid has been slow to reach. / UNHCR / Diego Ibarra Sánchez / May 2015.

The Earth's climate is changing at a rate that has exceeded most scientific forecasts. Some families and communities have already started to suffer from disasters and the consequences of climate change, forced to leave their homes in search of a new beginning.

For UNHCR, the consequences of climate change are enormous. Scarce natural resources such as drinking water are likely to become even more limited. Many crops and some livestock are unlikely to survive in certain locations if conditions become too hot and dry, or too cold and wet. Food security, already a concern, will become even more challenging.

People try to adapt to this situation, but for many this will mean a conscious move to another place to survive. Such moves, or the effects of climate change on natural resources, may spark conflict with other communities, as an increasing number of people compete for a decreasing amount of resources.

In addition to protecting populations displaced by disasters and the changing environment, we work to increase the resilience of people who are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

In photos: Climate change, disasters and displacement

14 December 2009

Since 2009, an estimated one person every second has been displaced by a disaster, with an average of 22.5 million people displaced by climate- or weather-related events since 2008 (IDMC 2015). Disasters and slow onsets, such as droughts in Somalia in 2011 and 2012, floods in Pakistan between 2010 and 2012, and the earthquake in Nepal in 2015, can leave huge numbers of people traumatized without shelter, clean water and basic supplies.

UNHCR leads the Global Protection Cluster for protecting and assisting people who are forcibly displaced and who cannot return safely home. Although the majority of people displaced by disasters and climate change will remain within their own borders where states have clearly defined responsibilities, the international community can, on request, provide support and humanitarian assistance.

When called upon to intervene, we can deploy emergency teams and provide concrete support in terms of registration, documentation, family reunification and the provision of shelter, basic hygiene and nutrition.

Many of those who are displaced across borders as a result of climate change may not meet the refugee definition. Nevertheless, they are in need of protection and assistance. Therefore, UNHCR is contributing to the Nansen Initiative on cross-border displacement to prevent displacement and protect displaced persons. We also contributed to develop planned relocation guidance to move people out of disasters and climate change effects while respecting their human rights and the Advisory Group on Human Mobility and Climate Change.

Survivors of 2008’s Cyclone Nargis shelter in the ruins of their destroyed home in War Chaun, a village in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwaddy Division. © UNHCR/Taw Naw Htoo
Somali refugees flee flooding in Dadaab, Kenya. The Dadaab refugee camps are situated in areas prone to both drought and flooding, making life for the refugees and delivery of assistance by UNHCR challenging. / UNHCR / B. Bannon © UNHCR/B.Bannon
A UNHCR staff member hands out blankets to people displaced by Cyclone Nargis at a temporary shelter in Yangon, Myanmar. © UNHCR/K.Myo
The 2006 drought in Jowzjan province of northern Afghanistan made the land unfarmable. © UNHCR/V.Tan
As part of a reforestation programme, a UNHCR environment officer teaches colleagues and refugees about the care of nursery plants in southern Chad’s Amboko refugee camp. © UNHCR/A.Rehrl
A roof battered by Cyclone Nargis is waterproofed with UNHCR plastic sheeting in Yangon, Myanmar. © UNHCR/S.Kritsanavarin
Young, new arrivals from Sudan’s Darfur region endure a sandstorm in the border town of Bamina, eastern Chad. Rainfall in this region has been in decline since 1950. This, coupled with deforestation, has had a devastating effect on the environment. © UNHCR/H.Caux
A Palestinian man wades through flood water in search of lost belongings. Severe rainstorms in October 2008 left tents inundated with water and sewage at Al Tanf, a settlement in the narrow no man's land between Iraq and Syria. © UNHCR/B.Auger
A Sudanese refugee hoists a jerry can of water out of a well in Birak, Chad. The locals generously share their dwindling water supplies with thousands of newly arrived refugees from the Darfur region. © UNHCR/H.Caux
With no place to go, some 6,000 unrecognized Muslim refugees from Myanmar built shelters by the Naf river, south of Cox’s Bazar, in Bangladesh. Conditions were harsh in an area prone to flooding and storms. © UNHCR/K.McKinsey
For Somali families that have endured violence and poverty for generations, a crushing blow came when climate change led to the disappearance of pasture for their animals. Their nomadic way of life destroyed, they are forced to settle in towns or cities where they are often reliant on assistance. © B Bannon
At the Chadian border town of Bettel, a UNHCR truck makes its way through floodwaters to transfer some 10,000 new arrivals from the Central African Republic to the Chad town of Gore. © UNHCR/C.Pryce
Rising sea levels have caused many inhabitants in the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu to relocate, raising questions about nationality, identity and culture if the population becomes stateless. © Panos/J.Carlin
Typhoon Santi left streets in Binan City, 30 kilometres south of Manila, all but impassable in November 2009. UNHCR sent a small emergency team to help the displaced in the Philippines. © Onasia/G.Joren