Much talk but little action on climate refugee crisis, says UNHCR official

Refugee camps are often the most vulnerable to extreme weather

Little has been done on the ground to alleviate a climate crisis-linked refugee crisis, despite much talk from governments, a UN refugee agency official said.

“There's a lot of discussions going on here at very important meetings. But what we do not see in the field is actually the translation of these commitments into tangible adaptation and resilience for those communities most impacted," said Andrew Harper, special adviser on climate action to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Africa has witnessed the world's worst climate-linked refugee crisis, often hand in hand with armed conflict. At least nine million people are currently displaced due to increasing violence, insecurity and extreme weather, such as drought.

Governments in the developing world have been forced to divert crucial funds for services to react to extreme weather.

At Cop29 in Baku next month, campaigners want to see if funding to tackle the crisis will come from the Loss and Damage Fund, which was agreed to at Cop28 in Dubai last year. The amounts pledged to date are far less than was hoped.

“The government and populations have to build their resilience, which means that those resources are diverted from elsewhere," Mr Harper told The National at the World Economic Forum meeting in Dubai this week. “Also, you see the diversion of resources from governments that should be being paid to education and health care in order to recover.

"Whether it be in Sudan, or Mozambique, or West Africa, if we don't do something much more substantive, then we're going to see the potential of societies to collapse. We now need to see action on the ground – we need transformation rather than incremental steps.”

Record-breaking temperatures and extreme weather have hit parts of the Middle East in recent years.

Middle East threat

“There's a lot of people in the Middle East who are reliant on agriculture, small farms, businesses – and climate change will impact that," Mr Harper said. “Even if you're not growing crops, you rely on roads, you rely on markets. But if you have extreme weather events damaging those roads and markets, then that's a challenge.

“The UAE is not immune to those stresses. We saw huge floods recently and we'll see increasing heat. Nowhere is immune, it often depends on the level of governance.”

Refugee camps are often the most vulnerable to the elements and images of tents being washed away by floods and high winds have not translated into help on the ground.

“We're seeing refugees going to countries that don't have access to water," Mr Harper said. "They've got poor shelter, poor food, and this has been replicated across Africa and elsewhere.

“We’ve already seen 120 million people displaced by conflict, that's a record number. We may see 130 million by the end of this year.”

Ama Francis, climate director at the International Refugees Assistance Project, said climate refugees are often "invisible ... but it's a huge driver of movement".

Looking to Cop29 next month, she and other refugee advocates want a clear answer on from where the funds to support climate refugees will come. The Loss and Damage Fund makes mention of support for climate-related migration but little has been agreed on how the fund is run.

"The draft agreement text has it within the scope of the fund but we haven't seen commitments of dollars moving towards the issue yet, so that will be something to keep track of at Baku," Ms Francis said.