One-Fifth of the World’s Population Is at High Risk of Climate-Related Hazards

Ruth Hill, Nisan Gorgulu, Ben James Brunckhorst, Minh Cong Nguyen, Stephane Hallegatte and Esther G. Naikal

No 11380, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. When these events occur, they threaten lives and livelihoods. This paper estimates the global population at high risk of climate-related hazards by combining household-level vulnerability data with local exposure to four types of events: agricultural droughts in rural areas, floods, heatwaves, and cyclones. Under current climate conditions, 4.5 billion people are expected to experience these hazards at intensities exceeding hazard-specific thresholds chosen to capture the likely occurrence of systemic impacts within a lifetime. One-third of this population is considered highly vulnerable, based on seven dimensions that influence ability to cope and recover: income, education, access to finance, social protection, drinking water, electricity, and access to services and markets. Overall, one in five people globally are considered at high risk, meaning they are both likely to experience at least one of these hazards and face severely limited capacity to recover from their impacts. Although the share of the global population at high risk has nearly halved since 2010 due to decreased vulnerability, the number of people exposed has increased, and progress has been uneven across regions. This study introduces a new global population headcount indicator based on household survey data and high-resolution spatial data to monitor climate risks across countries and over time.

Date: 2026-05-15
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/0994502 ... 1a0-fd66ae6bbcfd.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (https://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099450205152617522/pdf/IDU-28c85114-a4ab-4a01-91a0-fd66ae6bbcfd.pdf [302 Found]--> http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099450205152617522/pdf/IDU-28c85114-a4ab-4a01-91a0-fd66ae6bbcfd.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099450205152617522/pdf/IDU-28c85114-a4ab-4a01-91a0-fd66ae6bbcfd.pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11380

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().