Climate Crisis

As global warming intensifies and deadly heatwaves spread across the world, becoming the “new normal,” the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is calling on governments to adopt heat action plans to protect “hundreds of thousands of people dying from preventable heat-related causes each year.”  Meteorologists forecast temperatures in North America, Asia, across North Africa and the Mediterranean will rise above 40 degrees Celsius for a prolonged number of days this week. 

El Niño conditions have developed in the tropical Pacific for the first time in seven years, setting the stage for a likely surge in global temperatures and disruptive weather and climate patterns this year and in 2024. The naturally occurring major climate phenomenon may aggravate current humanitarian crises around the world and may lead to new emergencies related to the ongoing climate crisis.

With half a million people one step away from famine in north-eastern Nigeria, UN humanitarian agencies have sounded the alarm bell on Wednesday at a briefing in Geneva asking for urgently needed funding to provide life-saving operations. 700,000 children under the age of five years are at risk of life-threatening severe acute malnutrition, a number which has doubled compared to last year.

Leading United Nations agencies, including the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO), warn that millions of people in the greater Horn of Africa are trapped in an emergency hunger and health crisis driven by overlapping disasters, including climate change and conflict. WHO’s Greater Horn of Africa region includes the seven affected countries of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda.

The head of the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) has warned Thursday that conflict and climate change are pushing millions of Somalis to the brink of hunger, as the agency is running out of funds to help them. The longest drought on record has killed millions of livestock and decimated crops. It has recently given way to disastrous flash floods in the south of the country.

Acute food insecurity is set to increase in magnitude and severity in 18 hunger hotspots comprising a total of 22 countries, a new UN early warning report has found. The analysis issued Monday by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) calls for urgent humanitarian action to save lives and livelihoods and prevent starvation and death in countries where acute hunger is at a high risk of worsening from June to November 2023.

A toxic mix of conflict, severe drought and devastating floods has forced more than 1 million people in Somalia to flee their homes since the beginning of this year – a record rate of displacement for the country, reported the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on Wednesday.

With the Horn of Africa facing the combined impacts of a historic drought, conflict and economic shocks, donors at a United Nations-backed pledging event today announced US$2.4 billion to provide life-saving and life-sustaining assistance for nearly 32 million people across Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia facing hunger. However, the humanitarian community requires $7 billion for humanitarian aid and protection for drought- and conflict-affected people this year.

At least 573,000 children under five are at risk of suffering from malnutrition in Malawi, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has warned Friday. Despite recent progress in reducing chronic malnutrition, acute food insecurity, compounded by recurrent climate shocks, preventable disease outbreaks, economic instability, and chronic underfunding, threatens to reverse past gains, UNICEF said.

The passage of Tropical Cyclone Mocha across western and northern Myanmar and southeastern Bangladesh on Sunday and Monday has caused widespread damage, leaving at least 500 people dead and hundreds injured, according to initial reports. While some 100,000 people were evacuated, 5.4 million people in Myanmar were in the cyclone's path, with estimates suggesting nearly 3.2 million of the country's most vulnerable are in need of humanitarian assistance.

The number of people experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity and requiring urgent food and livelihood assistance has increased for the fourth consecutive year in 2022, a new report said today.  Over a quarter of a billion people were estimated to face acute hunger last year because of conflict, economic shocks and weather extremes related to the climate crisis, with the Ukraine war contributing to the increase.

190 million children in 10 African countries are at the highest risk from a convergence of three water-related threats – inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH); related diseases; and climate hazards – according to a new analysis released Monday by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The triple threat was found to be most acute in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Somalia.

The ten most under-reported humanitarian crises in 2022 were all in Africa, according to new analysis by the international humanitarian organization CARE.  The organization’s annual “Breaking the Silence” report, that was released today, highlights forgotten crises which received the least media attention over the course of the year. The report is being published for the seventh time.

Hunger and malnutrition are on the rise across the flood, drought, and conflict-affected areas of South Sudan, the United Nations (UN) warns. In a joint statement Thursday, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said that some communities are likely to face starvation if humanitarian assistance is not sustained and climate adaptation measures are not scaled-up.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is warning of surging needs for more than 3.4 million displaced people and their hosts communities in the face of recent destructive flooding in Africa’s Sahel region and beyond. In Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Cameroon above-average rain falls and flooding have killed hundreds, displaced thousands and affected millions.

An estimated 774 million children across the world – or one third of the world’s child population - are living with the dual impacts of poverty and high climate risk, according to a new report by the humanitarian organization Save the Children International. The countries with the highest proportion of children affected by this double burden are South Sudan (87%), Central African Republic (85%) and Mozambique (80%), the analysis released today says.

More than 2.5 million people in Nigeria are in need of humanitarian assistance and at increased risk of waterborne diseases, drowning and malnutrition due to the most severe flooding in the past decade, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has warned in a statement Friday. Over 1.5 million children are among those affected by the floods.

The world is at risk of yet another year of record hunger as the global food crisis continues to drive yet more people into worsening levels of acute food insecurity, warns the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).  In a statement this week, to mark today’s World Food Day, the UN agency called for urgent action to address the root causes of the hunger crisis.

The United Nations (UN) has dramatically raised its humanitarian appeal Tuesday to help millions of people in Pakistan, where erratic rains and a combination of riverine, urban and flash floods have unleashed an unprecedented climate-related disaster since June 2022. The revised international funding appeal, jointly launched with the Pakistani government, is seeking $816 million for the coming months in the wake of the immensity of the calamity and growing needs.

Climate change is fueling hunger in ten of the world's worst climate hotspots, according to a report published today by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Oxfam International. Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Guatemala, Haiti, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Somalia and Zimbabwe are ten of the world’s worst climate hotspots – those with the highest number of UN appeals driven by extreme weather events since 2000.  Oxfam warns in these countries the rate of acute hunger has more than doubled over just the past six years.

More than three million children are in need of humanitarian assistance and at increased risk of waterborne diseases, drowning and malnutrition due to the most severe flooding in Pakistan’s recent history, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warned today. UNICEF says it is working with Government and non-government partners to respond to the urgent needs of children and families in affected areas. 

The world’s wealthiest countries top-up climate finance with funds diverted from world’s poorest, finds a new report, released by the non-governmental organization (NGO) CARE International. According to the report, most of the public climate finance reported by rich countries is taken directly from development aid budgets, despite long-standing commitments to provide new money.