Climate-fueled disasters have forced about 20 million people a year to leave their homes in the past decade — equivalent to one every two seconds — according to a new report from Oxfam.
This makes the climate the biggest driver of internal displacement for the period, with the world’s poorer countries at the highest risk, despite their smaller contributions to global carbon pollution compared to richer nations.
People are seven times more likely to be internally displaced by floods, cyclones and wildfires than volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, and three times more likely than by conflict, according to the report released Monday.
The issue is one of a raft of topics set to be discussed at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP 25, which starts on Monday in Madrid.
Oxfam is calling on the international community to do more to fund recovery programs for poorer countries affected by the climate emergency, which is set to intensify as extreme weather events are projected to increase in both severity and frequency.
Low- and lower-middle income nations, such as India, are more than four times more likely to be affected by climate-fueled displacement than high-income countries like Spain and the US, according to the report.
Geography also plays a role, with about 80% of those displaced living in Asia.
Small island developing states (SIDS), such as Cuba, Dominica and Tuvalu, are particularly badly affected, making up seven of the top 10 countries with the highest rates of displacement from extreme weather disasters between 2008 and 2018.
People living in SIDs are 150 times more likely to be displaced by extreme weather disasters than those living in Europe, according to the report, which analyzed 2008-18 data from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.
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