Extreme heat was a growing threat. UNHCR cautioned that by 2050, one in three refugee settlements across sub-Saharan Africa could face 100 or more days of dangerous heat each year.
Droughts, floods and extreme heat were making those solutions harder to find.
The UN refugee agency said nearly 90 million refugees and other forcibly displaced people faced severe risks linked to a warming planet, days before the COP31 climate conference in Turkey. Weather-related disasters were also driving more displacement inside countries, causing more than 255 million internal displacements worldwide over the past decade, UNHCR said.
Only 10 percent of global climate finance goes to fragile and conflict-affected countries hosting large populations of climate-exposed displaced people, UNHCR said."Forced to flee conflicts they did not cause, they are now on the frontlines of a climate crisis they have contributed least to,"the agency said. In Syria, where nearly four million displaced people have recently returned, declining groundwater and climate shocks were threatening recovery, the agency said.
More than two-thirds of refugees who returned home during the first half of this year went back to countries highly vulnerable to climate hazards, UNHCR said. Climate change was increasingly threatening the prospect of lasting solutions for displaced people, the agency said. UNHCR said people forced to flee conflict, violence and persecution now live in places grappling with severe droughts, deadly floods and extreme heat.