Vulnerability and Environment
The world’s population will approach nine billion people by 2050, altering the requirements of, and consequences for, our environment. Inevitably, this complicated relationship between our expanding global population and the environment will have implications for the climate, our planet, and for societies. Pressures on the environment influence biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, land degradation, and water scarcity. Climate change can affect human health through the direct outcomes of hazards such as heatwaves, floods and storms, or through the indirect effects of disrupted ecosystems and altered patterns of infectious diseases. Our environmental impacts pose especially urgent threats to vulnerable populations who have contributed the least to their causes. In order to sustain the planet and the people living on it, we need to expand our knowledge of energy, sustainability, water and food security, humans as part of the global ecosystem, and the nexus with health outcomes.
Subthemes
Climate & Conflict
Sustainability & Health
Displaced & Disasters
The effects of climate and environmental change, such as increasing temperatures, sea-level rises, changing patterns of precipitation, and more severe extreme weather events are expected to influence key determinants of human health, including access to clean water, sufficient food, and adequate shelter. These effects can also directly and indirectly aggravate political and civil conflicts; destabilize agriculture, housing, and economies; and exacerbate health risks for vulnerable populations, in particular women and children. The social destabilization caused by drought, flood, famine, and diseases that follow crises, including epidemics, may aggravate political and civil conflicts as those affected compete for essential resources. Addressing these challenges demands global and multi-sectoral coordination across borders.
Below are examples of resources relevant to the overarching themes. Previously highlighted resources and additional resources can be found in our digital Repository.
Resources:
2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index
This data publication offers data for 109 countries and 6.3 billion people, comparing acute multidimensional poverty at regional, national, and subnational levels using the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). This year’s MPI data report finds that 1.1 billion people across 109 countries are multidimensionally poor. The 2025 report for the first time examines how climate hazards overlap with multidimensional poverty. Findings highlight that 80 percent of people in poverty live in areas with at least one of four climate hazards: high heat, drought, floods, or air pollution; almost 60 percent live with two or more of the four hazards. The findings underscore how those who are most vulnerable are also often those most exposed to climate risk.
2024 Food Insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean
This report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) provides This report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) provides a regional overview of food security and nutrition in Latin America and the Caribbean. This report provides the latest data on undernourishment, food insecurity, and malnutrition in the region and measures progress toward meeting the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 targets for ending hunger globally. The 2024 report presents the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis, and rising food prices on regional levels of hunger and food insecurity. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 focus specifically on how climate variability and extreme affect food security in the region and what can be done to strengthen climate resilience in the agrifood system.
COP30 Special Report on Health and Climate Change: Delivering the Belém Health Action Plan
This report from the World Health Organization examines the evidence for improving climate adaptation and resilience within health systems. The report accompanies the Belém Health Action Plan, which outlines a framework for promoting adaptation of the health sector. The COP30 Special Report on Health and Climate Change aims to provide a roadmap outlining how health systems can move from evidence to implementation, drawing on case examples of real-life interventions from the Belém Health Action Library. The report offers an overview of health equity and climate justice, discusses the evidence for action in health information systems, health system capability and capacity, and health innovation, research, and monitoring. The authors also emphasize the importance of reducing emissions to prevent escalating climate risks.
Sustainable global economic development depends on fostering shared prosperity for the next generation, while reducing poverty and protecting the environment now. To support a world population of more than 9 billion people, unsustainable patterns of resource consumption need to be interrupted, food and agricultural systems need to be strengthened, and measures to prevent further exploitation of the environment need to be implemented. Sustainable use of land, water, and fuel resources depend on balanced policies that engage multiple sectors, including energy, engineering, agriculture, water, health, education, business, government, and civil society. As land use decisions impact climate across borders, health and sustainability efforts call for awareness and change that extends beyond communities and countries, to cross-sectoral alliances and coordinated international collective action.
Below are examples of resources relevant to the overarching themes. Previously highlighted resources and additional resources can be found in our digital Repository.
Resources:
Global Environment Outlook 7
This flagship report from United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) summarizes the current state of the environment and analyzes current trends and policies. This seventh edition of the report focuses on the past, present, and predicted future of environmental change, including climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and pollution. The report then outlines pathways to addressing these issues through transformation of economic, waste, energy, and food systems. The authors urge that failling to take action will lead to major negative impacts to people, the planet, and economies; however, investing in systems transformation can help countries achieve environmental goals while also leading to socio-economic benefits including higher GDPs, reduced exposure to climate risks, fewer premature deaths, and reduced hunger and poverty.
Tracking Progress on Food and Agriculture-Related SDG Indicators 2025
This report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) assesses global progress on the food- and agriculture-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The report analyzes global data and trends across several targets, including global hunger, poverty levels, food prices, land rights, agricultural losses, environmental degradation, and more. The report finds that 8.2 percent of the world's population faced hunger in 2024, representing a continued trend of improvement from 2022 and 2023, but a deterioration from 2015 levels. The report also finds that in 2024, progress worsened on three-fifths of food- and agriculture-related SDG indicators, progress stagnated on one indicator, and progress improved or improved slightly for one-third of indicators.
State of Global Air 2025
This report, published by the Health Effects Institute and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), presents a comprehensive analysis of air quality and health impacts in over 200 countries worldwide, using data from IHME’s Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2023 Study to provide global, regional, and country-level estimates from 1990 to 2023. The report presents data on exposure to common air pollutants, such as fine particulate matter, ozone, and nitrogen dioxide. The report also analyzes the growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) due to air pollution, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and more. The report finds that in 2023, air pollution contributed to 7.9 million deaths worldwide, with more than 6.8 million deaths due to NCDs caused by air pollution.
Disasters can profoundly affect health, as people are forced to flee familiar support structures at short notice. Earthquake, fire, flood, tornadoes, and abrupt civil conflict such as geopolitical and security crises can all trigger population displacement that may result in social and economic destabilization. Hazards and shocks will inevitably occur, but measures can be taken to mitigate the negative effect on human development. Protecting the people at greatest risk requires identifying and targeting the most vulnerable groups and addressing underlying drivers such as social marginalization, social inequality, and insufficient infrastructure and services. As more people around the world become vulnerable to environmental risks, there is a critical need to build community resilience, implement early detection systems, and invest in strategies and policies that address the structural causes of vulnerability.
Below are examples of resources relevant to the overarching themes. Previously highlighted resources and additional resources can be found in our digital Repository.
Resources:
Commonwealth Fund State Scorecard on Climate, Health, and Health Care
This data publication from the Commonwealth Fund measures vulnerability to climate-related environmental hazards that affect health and health care systems across the United States. The scorecard ranks states on eight indicators: air quality, extreme heat risk, natural hazard vulnerability, energy efficiency policies, electricity generation emissions, health sector emissions, flood risk, and health care employee commuting emissions. The scorecard finds that Vermont, New York, and Washington had the lowest environmental risks and strongest decarbonization and clean energy policies.
The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security 2025
This report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) examines the impact of disasters on agriculture and food security worldwide. The report provides estimates of losses caused by disasters over the past three decades, analyzing the increased global threat to agricultural production and its sectors, such as crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries, and aquaculture. The report explores how global risks—from pandemics to armed conflicts—drive disaster risk in agriculture, threatening people’s livelihoods and food systems worldwide. This year's report also includes a focus on how digital technologies and tools are transforming risk monitoring and reduction, creating more resilient agrifood systems.
Global Risks Report 2026
This report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) examines the current landscape of global risks and their long-term implications across economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal, and technological categories. The 2026 report describes a predominantly negative outlook as a new competitive, rather than cooperative, landscape takes shape. Geoeconomic confrontation ranked as the top global risk in the next two years, followed by mis- and disinformation and societal polarization. Over the next decade, the most severe global risks included extreme weather events, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, and critical change to Earth’s systems. Through this publication, the authors aim to outline the greatest threats to societal stability and develop sustainable solutions for long-term prosperity and resilience.
Natural Disasters in Bangladesh
Bangladesh, with a population of 151 million people, is a country that is particularly prone to natural disasters. One in four people live in areas affected by cyclones and nearly three in four people live in flood-prone regions. How has Bangladesh been able to reduce disaster-associated mortality in the past 50 years? The government, together with the private sector and civil society, have mobilized on multiple simultaneous fronts—cyclone shelters have been built, warning strategies developed, and mechanisms for rapid response implemented. In addition to overall improvements in health, the country has tackled social determinants with multi-sectoral efforts to reduce poverty, promote gender equality, and improve education—all of which can mitigate the effect of natural disasters. A major challenge Bangladesh faces, in the context of climate change and an anticipated increase in weather-related events, is how to continue to improve upon these strategies in the face of rapid urbanization and population growth. Learn more about how Bangladesh is addressing natural hazards.
Gender, Climate and Health
The effects of climate on human society, and our ability to mitigate and adapt to them, are mediated by social factors, including gender. Many of the health risks that are influenced by environment and climate change show gender differentials. For example, droughts, floods and storms kill more women than men, and they tend to kill women at a younger age. Gender-related differences are also found in vulnerability to the indirect and longer-term effects of climate-related hazards. For example, droughts can influence health through the reduction in availability of clean water and through food insecurity. Not only do women and girls bear the greatest burden for physically obtaining water for their families, but they also disproportionately suffer the health consequences of under-nutrition. Women can make an important contribution to disaster reduction through participating in decisions at the household level that will ultimately enhance resilience, through collaborative efforts at the community-level to implement strategies for disaster management, and through engagement at the policy-level by acting as agents of social change. To learn more, read the first WHO report on the interactions between climate change, gender and health.
Landmark Climate Accord
Representatives of 195 countries reached a landmark climate accord that will, for the first time, commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change. Delegates who had been negotiating intensely in Paris for two weeks achieved what had been unreachable for two decades: a consensus on the need to move away from carbon-based fuels and a plan for the 195 nations to do so. At the heart of the final deal is a breakthrough on an issue that has foiled decades of international efforts to address climate change. Traditionally, such pacts have required developed economies, such as the United States, to take action to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, but they have exempted developing countries, such as China and India, from such action. The new accord changes that dynamic by requiring action in some form from every country, rich or poor. Learn more about the science of climate change.
Find Food Security Resources
Today, one billion people across the world struggle to obtain the food they need to lead healthy and productive lives. Food insecurity is inextricably linked with other social, economic and environmental challenges including forced migration, land degradation and resource scarcity shaped by climate change, urbanization, weak markets and poor governance. The Food Security Information Network (FSIN) is a global initiative co-sponsored by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, World Food Programme, and International Food Policy Research Institute to strengthen food and nutrition security information systems for producing reliable and accurate data to guide analysis and decision-making. FSIN serves as a neutral technical platform for exchanging expertise, knowledge and best practices, developing harmonized methods and tools, and providing resources related to Food Security and Information systems. Learn more about global food security.