The Ecological Threat Report 2023 was published by Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP). It looked at global ecological threats and identified the countries and sub-national areas most vulnerable to conflict, civil unrest and displacement as a result of environmental degradation and climate-related events.
Key points
- The number of people residing in countries facing severe ecological threats will go up to 2.8 billion by 2050.
- Presently, the number stands at 1.8 billion. More than half of the hotspot countries facing a severe threat are in sub-Saharan Africa.
- The number of countries suffering from severe ecological threats and low societal resilience has risen by three to 30 in the last year.
- Ecological threats are also considerably higher in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Of the 30 hotspot countries that face severe ecological threats and have low levels of societal resilience, 19 are in sub-Saharan Africa.
- The most at risk countries are Ethiopia, Niger, Somalia and South Sudan, of which Ethiopia and Niger have recently emerged as hotspots. Another new country to join the hotspots is Myanmar.
- Europe and North America are the only two regions where no country currently faced a severe ecological threat.
- The report focuses on four categories of threat: Food insecurity, natural disasters, demographic pressure and water risk.
