Nearly 80 percent of the world’s poorest population—around 900 million people—are directly exposed to worsening climate hazards, the United Nations has warned, describing it as a “double and deeply unequal burden.”
According to the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the poorest communities face the harshest effects of droughts, floods, heat waves, and air pollution intensified by global warming.
“No one is immune to climate change, but it’s the poorest among us who are facing the harshest impact,” said Haoliang Xu, Acting Administrator of the UNDP.
Xu urged that the upcoming COP30 climate summit in Brazil this November should be a turning point, emphasizing that “climate action must also be action against poverty.”
The findings come from an annual study by the UNDP and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, which revealed that 1.1 billion people in 109 countries live in “acute multidimensional poverty,” suffering from lack of basic needs such as education, healthcare, and sanitation. Half of those affected are children.
The report shows that sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are the hardest hit by the intersection of poverty and climate risks. About 887 million people face at least one environmental threat, with 608 million suffering from extreme heat, 577 million from pollution, 465 million from floods, and 207 million from drought.
Experts warn that rising global temperatures will further deepen inequality, making it harder for developing nations to recover.
“Responding to overlapping risks requires prioritising both people and the planet, and above all, moving from recognition to rapid action,” the report concluded.
