By mid-2021, about 89m people had been forcibly displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order. This is more than 1 per cent of the world’s population. The UN and host countries are struggling to meet the needs of internally displaced populations (IDPs) and refugees. Approx. 80 per cent of whom are hosted by low or middle-income countries and living in protracted circumstances.
Climate change is compounding this situation. According to the World Bank’s Groundswell report (2021), climate change could cause 216m people to migrate within their own countries by 2050, unless concrete climate and development actions are taken. Most of this forced migration is likely to take place in sub-Saharan Africa.
According to the IPCC AR6-WG2 report, Refugee and IDP settlements are concentrated in regions (e.g., Central Africa and the Near East) exposed to higher-than-average warming levels and specific climate hazards, including temperature extremes and drought, according to the IPCC AR6-WG2 report. At the same time, the IPCC points out that these populations frequently inhabit settlements and legal circumstances that are intended to be temporary but are protracted across generations, while facing legal and economic barriers on their ability to migrate away from climate impacts.
UNEP, through the Ecosystems Division, Energy and Climate Branch of the Economy Division and the Copenhagen Climate Centre, has the capability of supporting some countries to map the key issues, needs and options for including forcibly displaced populations in their climate change NDCs and National Adaptation Plans, as well as national climate policies supported by UNEP. For example, this technical work can be linked to UNEP’s NDC Action Project, which is operational in four of the world’s largest refugee-hosting countries: Bangladesh (0.9m), Colombia (1.8m), Jordan (0.8m) and Uganda (1.5m).
The UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre is also a co-founder of the UN’s Global Platform for Action on Energy in Situations of Displacement, where it has been a co-chair of the working group on research and data and has conducted research and analysis on the energy needs of displaced populations in East Africa and helping to design viable business and financing models for clean energy access. More broadly, UNEP is engaged in the topic of climate change and forced displacement and migration through more than 20 ongoing projects via units including the Climate Change Adaptation Unit and the Disasters and Conflicts Branch, both located in the headquarters in Nairobi.
At COP27, UNEP and UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre participated in a discussion on the main issues, needs and opportunities to include displaced populations into future NDCs and energy policies.
UNEP's support to this agenda is listed under commitment #92 in the 2022-2025 Medium Term Strategy, which states that “UNEP will work with UNHCR and the UN inter agency Global Plan of Action… to support access to clean energy for refugees and people displaced by conflict and environmental stresses, in particular women, to avoid the health impacts from inefficient cooking practices and lighting and the related unsustainable deforestation”. UNEP-CCC is also listed as a partner in support of UNHCR’s ‘Clean Energy Challenge’, launched at the first Global Refugee Forum in 2019.
