Nearly 80% of the world’s poor — an estimated 887 million people — live in regions exposed to extreme heat, flooding, and other climate hazards, according to a report released by the United Nations Development Programme and Oxford University.
The findings, published ahead of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil next month, mark the first time researchers have overlaid climate hazard data with multidimensional poverty metrics, which include health, education, and living standards.
“Poverty is no longer a standalone socio-economic issue,” said UNDP Acting Administrator Haoliang Xu. “It is compounded by and interlinked with the increasingly dramatic effects of the climate emergency.”
The report shows that 1.1 billion people globally live in multidimensional poverty, and 887 million of them are directly exposed to at least one climate hazard. Of those, 651 million face two or more hazards, while 309 million live in areas confronting three or four simultaneously.
South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa are the hardest-hit regions, accounting for 380 million and 344 million affected individuals, respectively.
In South Asia, 99.1% of people living in poverty face at least one climate shock, and 91.6% face two or more.
“Middle-income countries are a hidden epicenter of multidimensional poverty,” said Sabina Alkire, director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. “This is also where the climate crisis and poverty are notably converging.”
The report estimates that 548 million poor people in lower middle-income countries are exposed to at least one climate hazard, and more than 470 million face multiple threats. It also warns that countries with higher poverty levels today are likely to experience the steepest temperature increases by century’s end.
Xu called for urgent, coordinated global action. “Addressing such complex and interrelated issues requires holistic, cross-sectoral solutions that are adequately funded and implemented with urgency,” he said. “As we look to COP30, we carry forward a message of hope and cooperation.”