A new report warns that more than one billion people from the world’s most vulnerable areas face mass displacement by 2050, unable to cope with looming environmental crises.
Compiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), the Ecological Threat Register uses data from the United Nations and other sources to assess eight ecological threats – including rapid population growth, lack of access to food and water, and increased exposure to natural disasters.
With the world’s population forecast to rise to nearly 10 billion by 2050, intensifying the scramble for resources and fuelling conflict, the research shows as many as 1.2 billion people living in vulnerable areas of sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East may be forced to migrate by 2050.
The report has also found that nineteen of countries with the highest number of ecological threats are among the world’s 40 least peaceful countries, including Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Chad, India and Pakistan.
The IEP said it hoped the register, which may become an annual analysis, would shape aid and development policies, with more emphasis and funding going towards climate-related impacts.
