When Poverty Meets Climate Crisis: A 21st Century Challenge

Released today, new research reveals that the world’s poorest people are increasingly caught at the intersection of multidimensional poverty and climate risk, a transformation that threatens to reverse decades of development progress.

A landmark report from UNDP and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), titled “Overlapping Hardships: Poverty and Climate Hazards,” shows that nearly 8 out of 10 people living in multidimensional poverty are directly exposed to climate hazards such as extreme heat, flooding, drought, or air pollution.

By overlaying climate-hazard data with poverty metrics, the report highlights that climate stressors don’t hit populations evenly: they disproportionately affect those already experiencing multiple deprivations in health, education, and living standards.

One of the more alarming revelations: many of those living in poverty do not face just one hazard: they face multiple simultaneous hazards, including:

• 651 million among the poor are exposed to two or more climate hazards.
• 309 million are exposed to three or four overlapping hazards.
• 608 million poor people live under high heat risks; 577 million under harmful air pollution; 465 million in flood-prone zones; and 207 million in drought zones.

These overlapping risks amplify the vulnerabilities of already marginalized populations, who often have limited assets, weak social safety nets, and little capacity to absorb shocks.

The challenge is faced in several different ways across the world. South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa emerge as major hotspots with 380 million poor people in South Asia and 344 million in Sub-Saharan Africa reside in regions exposed to climate hazards. In South Asia, exposure is nearly universal: 99.1 % of people in multidimensional poverty face at least one climate hazard, and 91.6 % face two or more. Among country income groups, lower-middle-income countries carry the greatest share of exposed poor people: about 548 million poor people in these countries face at least one climate hazard, making up 61.8 % of the globally exposed poor. Alarmingly, many poor people in such countries confront multiple hazards.

What’s more, climate projections suggest a worsening picture: countries currently burdened by high poverty are projected to see the greatest temperature increases toward the end of the century, exacerbating existing inequalities.

The reports tell us that poverty eradication must be pursued under the pretense of climate adaptation and resilience. Policy responses must evolve from traditional approaches to ones that integrate climate risk management with poverty reduction strategies.

Some of the recommended priorities include:

• Developing climate-resilient social protection systems
• Strengthening local adaptive capacity, especially for the most exposed communities
• Scaling up international cooperation and climate finance with equity considerations
• Aligning climate pledges (like the Paris Agreement) with poverty and human development goals

Evidence suggests that unless global and national leaders make climate-vulnerable poor populations a priority in their planning and financing, gains against poverty stand to be eroded or stalled.

To read the full report, click here.