The double burden of poverty and climate crisis is no longer a looming threat; it is an unfolding reality
The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2025, recently released by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Programme, should not be seen as just another statistical update. It is a warning bell for the world’s conscience, an alarming reminder that poverty and climate change are no longer separate challenges. They are now converging crises that reinforce each other, deepening inequality and human suffering on a global scale. The report titled Overlapping Hardships: Poverty and Climate Hazards” marks a critical shift in how we understand deprivation. For the first time, it overlays multidimensional poverty data, measuring deprivations in health, education, and living standards with exposure to four major climate hazards: extreme heat, drought, floods, and air pollution. The outcome is a stark, data-driven narrative of a “double burden”, where nearly 80 per cent of the world’s poorest people live in regions simultaneously affected by one or more climate hazards.
A dual crisis
According to the MPI 2025, 1.1 billion people across 109 developing countries continue to live in acute multidimensional poverty. Of these, 887 million reside in areas facing at least one climate hazard. The relationship between poverty and environmental stress is circular and self-reinforcing: poverty increases vulnerability to climate shocks, while those shocks, in turn, exacerbate deprivation. The data reveal how multiple hazards compound the crisis. Around 651 million poor people experience two or more concurrent climate risks, and 309 million are exposed to three or four simultaneously. In such areas, the incidence of poverty is 24.8 per cent, compared to 14.4 per cent in less exposed regions. The findings underline a grim truth, i.e., climate change is not only undoing decades of poverty reduction but is actively deepening inequalities between and within countries.
Middle-income nations: The hidden epicentre
While low-income countries predictably exhibit the highest poverty rates (62.5 per cent), the report’s most surprising finding is that nearly two-thirds of the world’s multi-dimensionally poor, about 740 million people, live in middle-income countries. This challenges traditional assumptions about where poverty is concentrated and how development priorities are structured. In these nations, rapid urbanisation, industrial expansion, and unregulated economic growth often worsen environmental degradation, intensifying exposure to air pollution and water scarcity. Lower-middle-income countries carry the heaviest burden of overlapping risks, with 548 million poor people exposed to at least one major hazard. Air pollution alone affects 577 million poor people, while over 600 million remain deprived of clean cooking fuel, safe sanitation, and adequate housing, vulnerabilities that heighten the health impacts of climate stress.
South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa: Twin hotspots of risk
The geographical concentration of these overlapping crises remains heavily skewed. South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa together account for 83.2 per cent of the world’s multi-dimensionally poor. In South Asia, impressive progress in poverty reduction over the past two decades, including the remarkable fact that India alone lifted more than 400 million people out of multidimensional poverty between 2005–06 and 2019–21, is now under threat. Nearly every poor individual in the region (99.1 per cent) lives in an area exposed to at least one climate hazard. More alarmingly, 59 per cent (226 million people) face three or four concurrent hazards. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the picture is equally grim. Nearly half of all people in acute poverty, about 565 million, live here, and 193 million of them are exposed to multiple hazards. Seven out of the 10 MPI indicators show higher deprivation rates in Sub-Saharan Africa than in South Asia, making it the most acutely impoverished and environmentally fragile region in the world.
Children: The unseen casualties
The most tragic dimension of this crisis is its generational impact. Children under 18 constitute only a third of the population covered by the MPI, yet they represent more than half of all multi-dimensionally poor people, roughly 586 million. Their poverty rate (27.8 per cent) is more than twice that of adults (13.5 per cent). Living in poverty already exposes children to malnutrition, inadequate sanitation, and a lack of education. When these conditions are compounded by climate hazards like floods or extreme heat, the effects are devastating, destroying homes, disrupting schooling, and increasing disease risk. As UNICEF has noted, this convergence of deprivation and exposure is fundamentally a crisis of child rights. Adding to the urgency, the report finds that global progress in poverty reduction has stalled since 2018. Across most regions, improvements have either plateaued or reversed in the post-pandemic years. Of the 92 subnational regions examined, poverty reduction stagnated in 83. In some areas, such as Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, poverty has worsened significantly. The cumulative effect is clear: the double burden of poverty and climate vulnerability is eroding hard-won gains from earlier decades.
A warming and unequal future
The future projections are sobering. The countries with the highest levels of multidimensional poverty are the very ones expected to experience the most severe temperature increases. Under a high-emission scenario, these nations could face 92 more days of extreme heat per year by the end of the century compared to 62 additional days in countries with low poverty levels. This disparity underscores the deep injustice of the climate crisis. Those least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions are bearing the heaviest costs, not only economically but existentially. The world’s poorest are trapped in a vicious cycle: vulnerable because they are poor, and poorer because they are vulnerable.
An urgent call for integrated action
The findings of the MPI 2025 are unambiguous: poverty alleviation and climate action can no longer be pursued in isolation. The interdependence between human development and environmental sustainability demands integrated strategies that address both simultaneously. Governments must prioritise climate-resilient livelihoods, adaptive social protection systems, and green infrastructure investments. Development policies should focus on empowering local communities, strengthening their adaptive capacities, and ensuring equitable access to resources and services. For low- and lower-middle-income countries, whose fiscal capacities remain limited, the need for scaled-up international cooperation and climate finance is critical. The global north must recognise its shared responsibility and move from rhetoric to tangible commitments in technology transfer, capacity building, and financial assistance.
Beyond recognition to resolution
The Global MPI 2025 offers more than numbers; it presents a moral imperative. It shows that ending poverty, the first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 1), is increasingly inseparable from climate action (SDG 13). The path forward demands an integrated policy approach that places both people and the planet at the centre of development thinking. We must now move beyond acknowledging risks to implementing solutions. The double burden of poverty and climate crisis is no longer a looming threat; it is an unfolding reality. Unless immediate and coordinated action is taken, the world risks reversing decades of progress and deepening the inequalities that define our era.
The message is clear: the fight against poverty is also a fight for climate justice. Only by confronting both together can we hope to build a sustainable and equitable future for all.
Ashish Kumar Meher is Assistant Professor, Department of Economics and Development Studies, School of Social Sciences, Central University of Jharkhand
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth