When the perpetrator is the climate

ICRC Humanitarian Law and Policy Blog · Mar 19, 2026 · 14m

Climate change and armed conflict increasingly intersect in humanitarian settings. While the sector is now alert to climate-related risks – particularly in disaster response, resilience programming, and displacement governance – the ways these risks are interpreted and operationalized vary across institutional mandates and operational contexts. In protection practice within conflict-affected settings, climate impacts are still often framed primarily as “conflict multipliers” rather than direct drivers of civilian harm. This narrow lens risks overlooking the very insecurities communities…