Global climate change will have inevitable consequences and implications for the humanitarian community. Although specific outcomes are unclear, it is certain that the world will experience significant transformations in the next 20 years, and that currently vulnerable populations will be among those most affected. Researchers from the Stockholm Environment Institute, as the authors of this paper, describe the current state of climate information, and the expected human and physical consequences for which humanitarian organizations must be prepared to address in the next two decades.
This paper was commissioned under the auspices of the Humanitarian Horizons project, a joint initiative of the Feinstein International Center of Tufts University and the Humanitarian Futures Programme, King's College London. Launched in October 2008, the project builds on HFP's analyses of changing dimensions of future crisis drivers, and makes more practical the exploratory futures research conducted under the Feinstein Center's 2004 Ambiguity and Change project.