Climate Crisis and Poverty Overlap Threatens Global Development, Says New MPI Report
UNITED NATIONS, New York : The escalating impacts of the climate crisis are overwhelmingly affecting the world’s most vulnerable, with nearly 900 million people living in multidimensional poverty simultaneously exposed to major climate hazards, according to the new 2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report.
The report, produced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), presents a stark picture of how climate change and poverty are increasingly intertwined, describing poverty not merely as an economic issue but one “deeply interlinked with planetary pressures and instability.”
The 2025 Global MPI, titled Overlapping Hardships: Poverty and Climate Hazards, is the first report to overlay global climate hazard data with multidimensional poverty indicators. The findings reveal a severe and compounding risk for the world’s poor:
887 million people—nearly 8 in 10 of all multidimensionally poor people—are directly exposed to at least one climate hazard, including extreme heat, flooding, drought, or air pollution.
651 million poor people face two or more simultaneous threats.
A staggering 309 million people live in regions where three or four climate hazards overlap, creating a “triple or quadruple burden” that magnifies existing vulnerabilities and makes escaping poverty significantly harder.
The report, produced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), presents a stark picture of how climate change and poverty are increasingly intertwined, describing poverty not merely as an economic issue but one “deeply interlinked with planetary pressures and instability.”
The 2025 Global MPI, titled Overlapping Hardships: Poverty and Climate Hazards, is the first report to overlay global climate hazard data with multidimensional poverty indicators. The findings reveal a severe and compounding risk for the world’s poor:
887 million people—nearly 8 in 10 of all multidimensionally poor people—are directly exposed to at least one climate hazard, including extreme heat, flooding, drought, or air pollution.
651 million poor people face two or more simultaneous threats.
A staggering 309 million people live in regions where three or four climate hazards overlap, creating a “triple or quadruple burden” that magnifies existing vulnerabilities and makes escaping poverty significantly harder.