Last week at the Berlin Climate and Security Conference, the UN Refugee Agency’s special advisor on climate action Andrew Harper said, the agency is preparing for a significant rise in displacements given current rates of global warming. UNHCR is said to be preparing for worst case scenarios based on the unlikelihood of countries meeting global climate targets.

In April, on Earth Day, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said the climate change link to displacement is clear, citing that 90 percent of refugees now come from countries most vulnerable and least ready to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Many of the countries most vulnerable to climate change also host refugees and internally displaced persons.

At the conference Harper said, “we have got an obligation and a responsibility not only to be thinking positively but also to be preparing for the worst.

We’ve also got a responsibility, even though we are a humanitarian agency, not just to react or wait for people to cross the border in order to provide protection.”

UNHCR estimates that weather emergencies have forced on average about 21.5 million people to move every year since 2010.

Meanwhile, the latest global update from Climate Action Tracker shows almost every country analyzed is behind on meeting its Paris Agreement targets of below 2 degrees Celsius - ideally 1.5 Celsius - by the end of the century.

Climate finance pledges of $100 billion made by developed countries in 2009 to developing countries, also falls short, by OECD’s count by as much as $20 billion. This is key financial support essential to both mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Small island developing states on the frontlines of the climate crisis are struggling to access the essential monies needed to adapt and build resiliency, in part because only 25% of funding from rich countries is spent on adaptation.

The latest numbers show climate finance to small island states has actually dipped, despite growing threats, from $2.1 billion in 2018 to $1.5 billion in 2019, importantly, pre-pandemic.

With the COP 26 talks about three weeks away, there are concerns that the $100 billion pledged annually is insufficient to meet developing country needs. The UN estimates the figure is more in the range of $70 to $300 billion per year.

The UN Secretary General has called for at least 50% of the climate finance to developing countries be applied towards adaptation, with most of it provided as grants, rather than loans that have to be paid back. Current data from the OECD shows grants account for about 27% of climate finance.

Climate Refugees has written previously about debt-ravaged small island states that face additional barriers of accessing many sources of aid due to their country income classifications, disproportionately reflective of now battered tourism revenue, but not reflective of the effects of the climate crisis.

At the UN General Assembly last month, President Biden pledged to double the $5.7 billion in US climate finance already pledged, but much will depend on his administration’s ability to get key budget legislation through a divided Congress.

Even if passed, it seems unclear as yet when the new finance pledge would take effect and its distribution between climate mitigation and adaptation, the latter being the most costly and most needed.

For more on this see our feature “Why Structural Inequalities Belong in Climate Negotiations”

this article was updated on October 5, 2021