Climate change related events force exodus

In 2024, more than 11 million people in India were displaced due to natural calamities, a 30% increase from the previous year. Approximately 32,000 displacements were recorded in 2022, and 22,000 in 2021 according to data from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) as highlighted by an India Today (IT) report.

The 2025 Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID) report brought out by the IDMC says in its India Country Profile that in 2024, India recorded its highest number of disaster displacements since 2012, at 5.4 million, including 2.4 million triggered by the worst monsoon floods in more than a decade in Assam. Around 10% of the state’s population, more than three million people, live on fertile islands known as chars, highly exposed to floods. About 40% of the state’s territory is susceptible to flooding, and its frequency and intensity have shifted in recent years, forcing an increasing number of people to move, sometimes repeatedly and for extended periods. Climate change, deforestation and erosion, and the lack of maintenance of dams and embankments were some of the main drivers of risk, a reminder of the need to continue strengthening disaster risk management to prevent future displacement.

The surge in the number of natural disaster events is also alarming. Between 2019 and 2023, India recorded a total of 281 natural disaster incidents. But in 2024 alone, the country witnessed over 400 such events, the IT report adds. Over the past six years, floods have accounted for 55% of all internal displacements, followed by storms at 44%. Other climate-related displacements were caused by disasters such as landslides, earthquakes, and droughts. In just the first six months, over 11 million people have been displaced across India due to natural disasters, according to IDMC state-level data. Storms, including major cyclones, triggered an additional 1.6 million movements across the country. More than a million were associated with cyclone Dana, which formed in the Bay of Bengal in late October and hit Odisha and West Bengal.

An IDMC analysis states that in 2025, typhoons and floods struck China, India and the Philippines, while wildfires swept across the northern hemisphere – from the United States to Korea, Spain and Greece. Meanwhile, earthquakes in Myanmar and Afghanistan added to the needs and vulnerabilities of those already displaced by conflict.

The 2025 GRID report reveals that the number of internally displaced people worldwide has reached a new high of 83.4 million, more than double compared to just six years ago. Conflict, violence, and weather-related events, many intensified by climate change, are driving record levels of displacement. Of these, 9.8 million people were living in internal displacement at the end of the year after being forced to flee by disasters, a 29% increase over the previous year and more than double the number from just five years ago.

According to an IDMC press release, while climate change is making extreme weather events such as floods and storms more frequent and intense, these hazards alone do not force people to flee. Lack of preparedness, inadequate infrastructure and high exposure to risks, especially in low- or lower-middle-income countries, increase the likelihood that disasters will force people from their homes. Disaster displacement impacts are most severe in the same places where people and infrastructure are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Over 60% of the disaster displacements recorded in 2024 occurred in low- or lower middle-income countries or territories.

Displacement risk is likely to grow, the IDMC release adds. Climate risk modelling suggests that under a pessimistic warming scenario, 100 million people globally are at risk of internal displacement caused by disasters in any given year in the future. Even under an optimistic warming scenario, this figure could reach 55 million annually. According to the IDMC analysis, the global cost of disasters is rising sharply. Annual losses were estimated at $180-220 billion between 2001 and 2020, yet this figure captures only part of the picture as indirect impacts evolve over time and are harder to account for. Among these invisible costs, displacement is one of the most significant. It disrupts livelihoods, health, education and social life, with consequences that extend far beyond the immediate aftermath of a disaster.