3 billion people could live in places as hot as the Sahara by 2070 unless we tackle climate change

May 13, 2020

An indigenous Sahrawi man rebuilds his house, which was damaged by floods last October, in Al Smara desert refugee camp in Tindouf, southern Algeria March 4, 2016. In refugee camps near the town of Tindouf in arid southern Algeria, conditions are hard for indigenous Sahrawi residents. Residents use car batteries for electricity at night and depend on humanitarian aid to get by. The five camps near Tindouf are home to an estimated 165,000 Sahrawi refugees from the disputed region of Western Sahara, according to the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra SEARCH "THE WIDER IMAGE" FOR ALL STORIES Matching text ALGERIA-SAHARA/ - GF10000333467

Billions more people could be living in desert-like conditions, unless climate change is addressed. Image: REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

Sean Fleming

Senior Writer, Formative Content

Our Impact

The Big Picture

Explore and monitor how COVID-19 is affecting economies, industries and global issues

A hand holding a looking glass by a lake

Crowdsource Innovation

Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:

COVID-19

Have you read?

climate change migration habits environment temperature earth global globe world planet

The projected shift in temperature would affect the geographic distribution of people. Image: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America/ Chi Xu, Timothy A. Kohler, Timothy M. Lenton, Jens-Christian Svenning, Marten Scheffer [CC 4.0]

Much of Africa, South America and Australasia will face challenging conditions. Image: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America/ Chi Xu, Timothy A. Kohler, Timothy M. Lenton, Jens-Christian Svenning, Marten Scheffer [CC 4.0]

Environmental concerns dominate the risk outlook over the next 10 years. Image: World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2020

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.