Extreme weather behind 99.5% of disaster displacements last year

Euronews

15-05-2025

Cyclones, floods and other disasters forced people from their homes 45.8 million times last year, official figures show, nearly double the annual average over the past decade.
Virtually all of these internal 'disaster displacements' were due to extreme weather events, which are being turbocharged by climate change.
That's according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)'s latest global report, which also found that the number of people living in internal displacement at the end of 2024 exceeded 80 million for the first time.
In total, 83.4 million people were forced to move within their own country due to conflict and violence, as well as increasing disasters. That's equivalent to the population of Germany, and more than twice as many as only six years ago.
'Internal displacement is where conflict, poverty and climate collide, hitting the most vulnerable the hardest,' says Alexandra Bilak, IDMC director.
Sarah Rosengaertner, deputy managing director at the Global Centre for Climate Mobility (GCCM), described the latest figures as 'sad but not surprising.'
'It dovetails with the news that the world has reached, if not surpassed, the threshold of 1.5°C of average global warming,' she tells Euronews Green. 'Unfortunately, we can expect that rising temperatures will mean more disasters and further increases in disaster-related displacement in the coming years and decades.'
IDMC, part of the Norwegian Refugee Council, counts each time a person is forced to move as an internal displacement. So the 45.8 million disaster displacement figure - the highest since its records began in 2008 - refers to evacuations, not individuals.
The number of internally displaced peoples (IDPs) on 31 December is a separate statistic, capturing a snapshot in time in each country. Of last year's 83.4 million total, 9.8 million people were displaced by disasters; a 29 per cent increase on 2023 and more than double the number from just five years ago.
Weather-related events - many intensified by climate change - were responsible for 99.5 per cent of disaster displacements during the year, IDMC's Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID) reveals.
Cyclones - such as hurricanes Helene and Milton that hit the US, and typhoon Yagi that struck numerous countries in East Asia - triggered 54 per cent of movements tied to disasters in 2024. Floods prompted another 42 per cent, with major events on every continent: from Chad to Brazil, Afghanistan to the Philippines and across Europe.
Many disaster displacements were pre-emptive evacuations that saved lives in the US, the Philippines, Bangladesh and elsewhere. IDMC says this shows that displacement can be a positive coping mechanism in disaster-prone countries.
The 11 million disaster displacements in the US were the most ever recorded for a single country, it notes.
Although climate-fuelled disasters are getting worse, 90 per cent of people internally displaced by the end of 2024 (73.5 million) had fled conflict and violence. In Sudan, the devastating civil war led to 11.6 million IDPs - the most ever for one country.
Nearly the entire population of Gaza remained displaced at the end of the year - with some forced to flee from Israel's bombardment up to 10 times or more.
The number of countries reporting both conflict and disaster displacement has tripled since 2009.
More than three-quarters of people internally displaced by conflict and violence by the close of 2024 were living in countries with high or very high vulnerability to climate change, according to analysis of data from IDMC and the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative.
'Climate change increases the risk of being displaced and amplifies the vulnerabilities of displaced people, especially in places already affected by conflict and violence. When disasters strike in conflict settings, the risks multiply,' explains Vicente Anzellini, IDMC global and regional analysis manager.
'This convergence makes crises more complex, prolongs displacement, and sets back efforts to find durable solutions. Ignoring these overlapping risks puts people at risk of long-term displacement.'
Resolving disaster displacement requires both immediate responses and long-term planning, Anzellini tells Euronews Green. People need humanitarian aid, but also investment in climate adaptation and mitigation - without which the number of displaced people will continue rising.
'There is not a single solution,' says Rosengaertner. 'We need an alliance of political leaders, technocrats, entrepreneurs and community leaders to advance a combination of actions that both protect people's right to stay and enable movement in dignity.'
First and foremost, this means cutting greenhouse gas emissions that are fuelling extreme weather events. The GCCM, which is backed by UN agencies, highlights four other steps:
Urban areas will often be at the forefront of responding to displaced persons' needs, Rosengaertner adds, and so must be prepared to provide safety and opportunity.
Internal displacement 'uproots lives', in Anzellini's words. It is a clear form of 'loss and damage' - a new category of climate finance which countries agreed to deliver at the UN climate summit in 2022.
But, he says, 'while progress and commitments have been made, current funding is far below what is needed and often fails to account for the true costs of displacement.'
The increasing recognition that more funding should be allocated for adaptation and loss and damage does not mean that the necessary funds are being made available, says Rosengaertner. Or that they come in the form that recipient countries deem fair.
'Displacement risk and displaced populations are not necessarily at the top of priorities (yet) when governments seek funding for adaptation and L&D,' she adds.
Priorities are likely to get more competitive, as wealthy countries have been cutting their humanitarian aid budgets recently.
As well as directly impacting displaced people, 'these cuts also affect a lot of the data sources and systems that we rely on to monitor and understand internal displacement,' explains Anzellini. It's too early to tell the full extent of these impacts, though, and lack of data will inevitably make it harder for organisations to plan responses.
'Cuts to humanitarian and development aid are already costing lives and will make many communities more vulnerable to the impacts of extreme weather and disasters,' Rosengaertner warns. 'At a time when many people are looking for order, these cuts are a recipe for further destabilising already vulnerable populations and societies.'
However, she says, there could be space for 'rethinking' development aid and climate finance.
If rich countries were to compensate for the cuts by improving conditions for trade and labour mobility, for example, or engaging in technology transfer, 'maybe the net outcome of aid cuts could be positive.'
'What is critical,' she concludes, 'is that more resources reach countries and communities in need and create skills, opportunities and climate resilience locally.'