Forcibly displaced people are highly exposed to climate-related hazards. Increasing their access to early warning systems, early and anticipatory action and climate-adaptive programming are necessary for effective adaptation.

Fleeing persecution, conflict and other protection violations, forcibly displaced people enter geographies prone to climate-related hazards which they may not anticipate or be prepared for. They may have limited assets, be disconnected from national early warning systems and be unfamiliar with local weather and topography. They may also end up in the most hazard-prone parts of host regions or countries. Despite this, forcibly displaced people lag far behind in receiving needed investments to prepare for current and future climate risks.

Until recently, much of the discourse surrounding climate change and displacement focused on people forced to flee due to extreme weather events and other climate change impacts (climate-induced displaced people). The impacts of climate change on already displaced populations were under-acknowledged and under-explored, with little reliable data existing to elucidate the types of and extent of exposure once people were in exile. Yet these impacts have been evident in many interviews conducted with refugees in East Africa over the past decade, and have been increasingly emphasised since 2020, when drought and flooding have become more severe and impactful in much of the region.

Many refugees interviewed in the Nakivale refugee settlement in southwest Uganda, for example, brought up ‘too much sunshine’ as a key issue impacting their ability to produce crops. Extreme heat and drought conditions have reduced harvest yields and limited agricultural livelihoods options, increased market prices and further reduced many refugees’ already tenuous levels of food security. Elsewhere, in refugee settlements in the Adjumani district in northwestern Uganda, colleagues from Makerere University have documented the many impacts of flooding on refugees.[1] The research found that limited early warning systems or formal preparedness activities have exacerbated already dire situations, with a reported increase in health issues, flooded homes and even children washed away by floodwater.

Multi-hazard risk exposure

Research conducted by the author with the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre analysed the current and projected exposure of refugees and IDPs to climate-related hazards: flash flooding, wildfire, extreme heat, drought and strong winds and tropical cyclones. It documented the locations of 46 million displaced people in 864 sites in the top refugee- and IDP-hosting countries, generating localised data at camp/settlement and city/urban level in 20 countries. The data shows that even though people may have been forced to flee due to persecution, armed conflict, violence and climate-related hazards, they are often vulnerable to other hazards, particularly climate-related ones. The vulnerability to climate-related hazards identified reinforces research findings by other actors, including UNHCR and the World Bank.

Of the forcibly displaced populations mapped, over 75% were exposed to three or more hazards (what is known as multi-hazard exposure). This means, for example, that refugees in a particular area may be dealing with drought in one season, followed by extreme flooding in another, compounded by the risk of cyclones. Most forcibly displaced people exposed to four or more hazards were in conflicted-affected or newly post-conflict countries: Syria, Yemen, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Limited governance, weak weather forecasting and extreme weather alert capacities; limited weather, climate, and population data; and active conflict (or the threat of it) all play a role in reducing the adaptive capacities of both governments and people themselves, including those forcibly displaced.

The risk of extreme heat exposure is the most common hazard faced in the population analysed. This is particularly alarming given the inadequate shelter of many refugees and IDPs, who – faced with both external and individual limitations – often live in tents or in poorly designed homes lacking cooling mechanisms or access to community cooling shelters.

Compounding and cascading risks and challenges

Forcibly displaced people are not just dealing with climate hazards alone. Instead, millions face restrictions on freedom of movement, a reliance on non-durable building materials and temporary infrastructure in camps, language barriers that impede information dissemination and uptake, the ongoing risk of conflict and violence, and more. The semi-closed economies of many camps and settlements also mean that food prices can skyrocket when harvests are poor. In the Nakivale refugee settlement, for example, refugees are meant to be self-reliant through food production, yet the combination of drought, flooding, and reduced plot sizes has severely limited this potential. A Congolese farmer living in Nakivale explained that food insecurity “has even worsened with time. Changes to the climate have seriously affected our harvests, leading to hunger. Inflation in the country also reduced the capacity of households for buying what we made and still makes insignificant the cash support we get from World Food Programme, which was even reduced to a minimum year after year.”

These difficult realities increase forcibly displaced people’s vulnerability to climate-related hazards and their impacts, and also have implications for the humanitarian, development and government actors seeking to assist them. A restriction on the right to freedom of movement means, for example, that in the Cox’s Bazar refugee camp in Bangladesh, evacuation of people from camps in advance of cyclones is impossible. In the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, the limitation on durable shelter has increased damage from flooding and left more refugees doubly displaced, with tents destroyed and possessions lost. Similarly, a restriction by the Ugandan government on the type of bricks refugees can build with also means that homes and community structures are further susceptible to hazards like flooding, which in turn has knock-on effects on assets and savings.

Anticipating climate-related hazards – and responses

Research shows clearly that more investment in early warning systems and early action in fragile and conflict-affected contexts is needed, with an explicit focus on displaced populations. This agenda is all the more important in order to fulfil the United Nations Early Warnings for All initiative, which aims to ensure that every person on earth is covered by early warning systems by 2027.

The commitment to ‘Early Warning, Early Action’ is a crucial principle and component of global adaptation to climate change, but countries affected by fragility, conflict and violence, and populations such as refugees and IDPs, lag far behind in receiving needed investments to prepare for current and future climate risks. Members of the Technical Working Group on Self-Reliance, Displacement, and Climate Risks, co-chaired by the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative and Refugees International, have repeatedly raised concerns about refugees’ lack of representation in National Adaptation Plans, which outline how countries will adapt to climate change in the medium- and long-term, for example ii. They have also highlighted the lack of recognition in many adaptation documents of climate risks displaced people face based on camp locations and the often limiting legal and social environments of exile.[2]

As a minimum standard of humanitarian and development programming, climate risks should be evaluated at programme design stage and adapted in implementation. Practitioners working with forcibly displaced people should understand and address the particular climate risks they face – in part by asking forcibly displaced people about their experiences and including them in the co-creation of climate-adaptive programming.

The scale of the climate crisis also demands going beyond the minimum. Long-term climate projections show that extreme heat may make some refugee-hosting areas unliveable, meaning practitioners and policymakers must begin discussions now about how to drastically change living conditions in camps or develop relocation plans to enable people to live safely elsewhere in exile. Many refugees feel they have no choice but to endure their worsening circumstances, as they lack the funds and connections to move out of camps and settlements, even when these sites are flooded or no longer have viable conditions for agriculture.

In the best-case scenario, a variety of actors, including humanitarians, displaced people, donors and climate scientists collaborate using a variety of tools to identify, plan for and mitigate the impacts of climate change on displaced people. For example, weather forecasts can inform the provision of humanitarian assistance before a natural hazard occurs to avoid a disaster. At the time of writing, 154 so-called anticipatory action frameworks, based on a combination of forecasting, pre-arranged financing and pre-positioned assistance, are now in place in 48 countries, developed by actors like the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, UN OCHA, World Food Programme, Start Network, and many others.[3] A further 197 frameworks are being developed in 76 countries. In advance of extreme weather events like flooding, early action to support forcibly displaced people has been implemented in isolated cases, including by the UN in an IDP camp in South Sudan to avoid dire health and livelihood impacts and mass unplanned evacuation.[4] However, early and anticipatory action for forcibly displaced populations still remains the exception.

If the international community is serious about improving prospects for forcibly displaced people and delivering more effective assistance overall, increasing early warning systems and early and anticipatory action for the world’s more than 123 million displaced people must be a key component of adaptation assistance. This can take place through channels such as the UN Loss and Damage Fund and recent COP commitments to increase climate finance for countries experiencing fragility, conflict and violence. It can also take place – in part – through the leadership and community structures of displaced people themselves. Technical working group members have shared the value of refugee engagement fora, refugee committees, and refugee-led organisations as important avenues for both channelling adaptation assistance and information, and sourcing existing practices from displaced people themselves.

Adaptation assistance, including anticipatory support, for forcibly displaced people can mitigate the risk of secondary or multiple displacement due to climate-related hazards. Climate-adaptive programming can improve the effectiveness of a variety of sectors, from livelihoods to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) to shelter. Supporting forcibly displaced people to prepare and take action in advance of climate-related disasters may increase their available choices – and be the difference between their ability to adapt in situ or being forced to move yet again.

Evan Easton-Calabria
Research Associate Professor, Tufts University; Senior Technical Advisor, Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre; Co-lead of the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative (RSRI) Technical Working Group on Climate Risks, Displacement and Self-Reliance, and the Anticipation Hub’s Working Group on Anticipatory Action for Displacement
evan.easton_calabria@tufts.edu
linkedin.com/in/evan-easton-calabria

[1] This research takes place as part of the Center for Climate and Health glObal Research on Disasters (CORD), Tufts University. Makerere University, Uganda, is one of seven consortium partners. This research is led through the Makerere School of Public Health, https://sph.mak.ac.ug/.

[2] Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative (2024) Climate Risks and Displaced People: Considerations for Self-Reliance Programming. https://www.refugeeselfreliance.org/resource-database1/climate-risks-and-displaced-people-considerations-for-self-reliance-programming

3. Anticipation Hub (2025) Anticipatory Action in 2024: A Global Overview
4. Easton-Calabria, E (2025) ‘Possibilities and limitations of anticipatory action in complex crises: acting in advance of flooding in South Sudan’, Disasters, Vol 49 (1): e12654

READ THE FULL ISSUE