MSF Science Portal

The climate crisis is also a health and humanitarian crisis, disproportionately impacting people in the world’s most climate-sensitive regions—mainly low- and low-middle income countries with the least capacity to respond. MSF and other humanitarian organizations witness the consequences daily. More frequent, intense weather events and a warming planet contribute to food and water scarcity, more severe and widespread disease outbreaks, and more injuries and preventable deaths. They also drive massive population displacement, with over 32 million people fleeing their homes in 2022 alone due to floods, drought, storms and fire—nearly triple the number displaced by violence and conflict. To mark Earth Day 2024 (22 April) we present a cross-section of work by MSF and collaborators, drawing from a range of data sources and from first-hand experience at our medical projects. Emphasizing the urgency of adapting humanitarian operations to the climate crisis, the collection also explores loss and damage through a health lens, proposes policies and practices for creating climate-resilient health organizations, and advocates for embedding fair, just ethics perspectives into humanitarian action and research on climate.

Conflict, persecution, poverty, food insecurity and natural disasters—increasingly fueled by climate change—continue to drive migration globally. Yet many wealthy countries are doubling down on hostile policies to prevent people from seeking safety within their borders, thereby subjecting them to a wide range of harms. In a newly-published report MSF focuses on European Union and member state policies that intensify exposure to violence, exploitation, risk of drowning at sea, disease, and lack of access to basic health care and shelter, both within European Union borders and beyond. The Collection linked below presents this report alongside selected publications illustrating the broader context, based on quantitative studies and accounts from MSF patients and medical teams over nearly a decade of operational experience along the European migration route. From violent, squalid detention centers in Libya— where people intercepted by the EU-supported Libyan coast guard are forcibly returned —to perilous Mediterranean crossings in flimsy rubber boats and often abysmal reception centers and camps within the EU, it documents how these policies and practices further harm highly vulnerable people seeking safety and protection.