Our planet must be liveable for all

World leaders have gathered in Baku for the COP29 climate negotiations. The goal is clear: to maintain a liveable planet, we need to cut emissions as much and as urgently as possible.
The talks focus on raising finance and ambition — both of which are clearly needed if we are to meet the Paris Climate Agreement’s target of holding global temperature rise to 1.5C. But if these negotiations don’t consider the many ways in which climate and conflict are intertwined, they remain wishful thinking.
Our world is facing the highest number of violent conflicts since World War II, with a quarter of humanity living in places affected by conflicts.
Countries hardest hit by climate change are also those worst affected by conflict: all the 14 countries most at risk from climate change are suffering conflict. About 70% of refugees and 80% of internally displaced people originate from countries on the front lines of the climate crisis.
The triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution are increasingly making our world more fragile, fuelling conflict at least indirectly. Beyond their tremendous human suffering and economic damage, conflicts also come with a huge climate cost, as demonstrated by recent reports on the environmental impact of wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
By one account, conflict and militaries are linked with over 5% of global emissions. Military attacks can contaminate water, soil and land, releasing air pollutants. Unexploded ordnance can pollute soil and water sources, threatening wildlife. All of this reduces people’s resilience and their ability to adapt to a changing climate.
Despite these obvious links, people in these settings are often those most left behind by climate action. As things stand now — fragile and conflict-affected states get a small fraction of the financial resources they need to build resilience. Some reports find countries facing armed conflict receive the least. To give one example, between 2014 and May 2021, extremely fragile states received on average US$2.1 (73.17 baht) per person per year in climate finance, compared to $161.7 per person for non-fragile states.
Many factors lead to this broken system, among them, weak governance structures, low donor appetite for risks, limited capacity for implementation, made harder amid active conflict, while the lack of data and planning make it hard to attract climate finance.
But if our goal is to secure a liveable planet for all, this needs to change.
As negotiators agree on a new financial target to support developing countries in their climate actions after 2025, they need to ensure that adequate climate finance goes to fragile and conflict-affected settings, to support adaptation and resilience building.
And when finance does reach fragile and conflict-affected countries, we all have a responsibility to support implementation in a conflict-sensitive way, requiring climate action that is mindful of and responsive to the root cause of conflicts, whether its marginalisation of communities, tensions over resource access or human rights violations, among others. Above all, we need to work with communities and governments to create an environment for climate action that puts people — their needs and vulnerabilities — at the centre of operations.
This work is possible. Throughout our work at UNOPS — we see examples of the power that climate action has to drive sustainable development and build lasting peace, in fragile and conflict-affected settings.
UNOPS is about practical solutions, delivering projects across humanitarian, development and peace and security operations. We implement on behalf of the United Nations, governments and other partners, drawing on infrastructure, procurement and project management expertise. About half of UNOPS’s global delivery takes place in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, from Gaza and Ukraine, to Myanmar, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia and many others.
Take Yemen, for example, a country that is highly vulnerable to climate change — and one where years of conflict have severely undermined the provision of public services. Here, funded by the World Bank, we work with local partners to provide off-grid solar electricity to schools, hospitals, streets and households. Beyond restoring access to critical urban services for 1.4 million Yemenis, this means building resilience, and supporting a local economy invested in sustainability. At the same time, in Yemen, UNOPS supports the efforts of the UN Special Envoy to negotiate peace, while delivering urgent medical equipment and supplies.
In Somalia, one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change, we work together with the ministry of health and the World Bank to rehabilitate regional hospitals and make them more resilient, including in the face of climate-related shocks. This work integrates climate resilience measures — such as flood prevention mechanisms, wind-resistant structures and passive cooling systems. Here, too, there is a similar story: despite the huge impact that resilience building has –and the major need for it — climate financing to Somalia has been scarce.
Ultimately, without tackling the links between climate and conflict, a sustainable, liveable planet will remain out of reach. As climate impacts worsen, so do the vulnerabilities of those already facing hardship. So as we mobilise the finance and ambition needed to bring our world back from the brink of climate chaos, let’s redouble our support to fragile, conflict-affected regions, with finance and action that matches their needs.
Jorge Moreira da Silva (X/Twitter: @UNOPS_Chief) is UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UNOPS. He has over 25 years of experience working on climate change, energy and environment in the public and development sectors. Previously, he was Director of the Development Co-operation Directorate at OECD and Portugal’s Minister for the Environment, Territorial Planning and Energy.