News Alert: New Report Shows Climate Crisis to Displace One Billion People by 2050

Today, the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) launched its inaugural Ecological Threat Register, finding that over one billion people globally face being displaced from their homes due to environmental change and conflict by 2050. 

The global organisation Mercy Corps, a partner to the report, has called for urgent support to the communities that risk losing their homes, livelihoods, and face increased food insecurity and conflict as a result of the climate crisis.

Emma Whitaker, Mercy Corps’ Peace and Conflict Advisor, says:

“Today’s report from the IEP is a sobering reminder that the climate crisis does discriminate, and it is those who are already on the front line of some of the worst humanitarian crises in the world that stand to be hardest hit.

The countries most at risk from ecological threats - countries like Afghanistan, Syria and Mozambique - are some of the least peaceful in the world, already beset by conflict and violence. It is in these countries that we are seeing flooding routinely displacing entire communities, experiencing rising levels of hunger and poverty, and where natural resources like water are rapidly disappearing, causing even more conflict between those at risk of losing their livelihoods. 

The climate crisis is not just making existing long-standing crises worse for billions of people globally, it is creating brand new ones.

This report quite clearly shows that things will get worse and disrupt billions of lives unless we act urgently to support them. We must build resilience in the most vulnerable communities, or we risk unprecedented levels of hunger, displacement and migration over the next 30 years.”