Collective Priorities Needed for Ambitious Climate Action

Climate change continues to be one of a few main drivers of record levels of displacement and rising humanitarian needs globally. In the face of compounding climate impacts and their evolving effects on humanitarian responses—including impacting supply routes and raising commodity prices—humanitarian actors are considering their role and responsibilities in addressing them.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report, published in 2022, found that climate risks are presenting themselves quicker and are having more pronounced effects than previously expected. Climate change is already causing severe strains on food and water systems, human health and wellbeing, livelihoods, and shelter and settlements.

Climate change also increasingly contributes to the risk of conflict. A 2020 report from the International Committee of the Red Cross found climate change can indirectly increase the risk of conflict by exacerbating existing social, economic, and environmental factors.

To grapple with this pressing challenge, InterAction facilitated a Climate Roundtable on October 8, 2024, attended by 41 staff representing 25 Member and donor organizations. The roundtable included a high-level panel and targeted breakout rooms where attendees identified key priorities for policy, advocacy, and humanitarian practice, and developed collective priorities for the sector.

The Climate Roundtable

The roundtable consisted of an expert panel, including Michael Ernst from the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, Lindsay Jenkins from the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, and Jocelyn Perry of Refugees International.

The panel explored the need for ambitious action in humanitarian response to mitigate and adapt to climate impacts and for increased collaboration across the humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding nexus. Panelists agreed that humanitarians should increasingly look to local communities, including displaced populations, to design, inform, and lead climate adaptation and resilience efforts. The panel also addressed links between climate change and displacement, noting that climate change is not only a cause of displacement, but also often a major vulnerability for those already displaced.

Breakout discussions following the panel focused on anticipatory action and disaster risk reduction; forced displacement and migration; multi-sectoral, multi-stakeholder environmental responses; housing, land, and property rights and climate impacts; and climate adaptation in fragile, conflict, and violence (FCV) affected contexts.

In breakout group discussions, participants discussed:

• Practical examples from organizations of anticipatory action programming.
• Arguments for and challenges to anticipatory action programming, including risk management in early intervention, finite funding, and funding priorities.
• Leveraging existing protection pathways, such as safe mobility offices and the L.A. Declaration for those displaced due to climate impacts.
• Interaction between land rights and climate impacts, such as preserving land records during climate events and supporting communities in accessing land rights and investing in mitigation and adaptation activities on their land.
• Barriers to funding and programming in FCV contexts and how to overcome those barriers, including limited technical capacity to engage in climate adaptation work in these contexts and the need to build local capacity to response to climate impacts.

Overall, group discussions identified several common threads, including the need for private sector engagement, local actor engagement (both communities and local governments), and engagement across the humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding nexus to address the impacts of climate change.

Other common threads identified highlight the need for:

• A common understanding of anticipatory action and its application in different crisis situations.
• Effective messaging for engaging the private sector on climate adaptation and mitigation activities.
• Countering negative narratives and misinformation regarding climate migration.
• Emphasizing the importance of housing, land, and property rights for climate action.
• Local leadership, including local capacity building, sharing climate risk information with communities, and collaborating with local actors on mitigation and adaptation activities.

Engagement at the Climate Roundtable underscored a critical message: there is an urgent need for ambitious action on the part of the humanitarian and development sectors to adapt interventions to address the toll climate change is taking on communities.

With forecasting predicting climate change to exacerbate humanitarian needs in the future, immediate action is imperative.