May 13, 20253 min readDisasters Displaced a Record 46 Million People Last YearIn 2024 disasters displaced a record number of people both globally and in the U.S. About 11 million U.S. residents had to relocate to another part of the country because of hurricanes, floods and wildfiresBy Chelsea Harvey & E&E News Aerial view of destroyed houses in Port St Lucie, Florida, after a tornado hit the area and caused severe damage as Hurricane Milton swept through Florida on October 11, 2024. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/AFP via Getty ImagesCLIMATEWIRE | Natural disasters and human conflict forced about 66 million people to flee within their own countries last year, and the United States led all nations with 11 million of these internal displacements, new research finds.That’s a record for the United States. And last year broke a global record, too, as 2024 saw the largest number of disaster-related internal displacements since experts began tracking the issue in 2008. About 46 million people worldwide had to relocate domestically last year because of natural disasters; another 20 million had to flee because of conflict or violence.Those are the latest statistics from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, an international nongovernmental organization that keeps tabs on the number of people forced to flee within their countries each year because of natural disasters, extreme weather, conflict and violence.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.IMDC publishes the previous year’s findings in an annual report each spring; its latest analysis was released Tuesday.The 46 million people forced to relocate domestically because of natural disasters last year represents a big jump from 2023, which saw 26 million people internally displaced because of events such as storms, floods, wildfires and droughts. In the United States, natural disasters were the sole reason 11 million residents had to relocate domestically.Cyclones triggered more than half of disaster-related movements worldwide last year. That includes Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which both caused tens of billions of dollars of damage in the United States. Floods accounted for another 42 percent of the disaster displacements, with events occurring on every continent last year.At least 8.3 million disaster-related movements occurred in the form of preemptive evacuations, the report found. Evacuations were reported in 53 of the 163 countries and territories reporting weather and disaster displacements in 2024. Many of these occurred in the United States; Hurricane Milton alone triggered around 6 million evacuations in Florida.Climate change is causing extreme weather events to intensify globally. At the same time, the report notes, other human factors are worsening the impact of these disasters, including inadequate infrastructure and urban expansion in disaster-prone areas.Low- and middle-income countries, on the whole, continue to be disproportionately affected by disaster displacements. And vulnerable communities within these countries tend to experience the worst outcomes.For instance, catastrophic flooding in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul last spring killed more than 180 people and triggered at least 775,000 displacements. Most occurred in the state capital of Porto Alegre, according to the IDMC report, and disproportionately affected Black and Indigenous communities.At the same time, conflict zones are increasingly overlapping with areas hit hard by natural disasters, many made worse by climate change. According to the report, the number of countries reporting both disaster and conflict displacements has tripled since 2009.The rise of these compounding crises points to the need for better preparation and resilience efforts, the report suggests.“Resolving displacement requires both immediate efforts to help people who have lost everything and investments to address underlying vulnerabilities, so people don't become displaced in the first place,” said IDMC Director Alexandra Bilak in a statement.More than 20 million people across 49 countries were internally displaced by conflict and violence last year, the report found. All but four of these countries reported disaster displacements as well.More than 5 million conflict displacements occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the most of any country worldwide. Heavy rainfall also triggered intense floods in the DRC last year, and many roads became blocked by water or by armed groups. The combination of these issues prevented aid organizations from assisting hundreds of thousands of displaced people, the report found.The report also notes that while some people are able to return home after disasters or conflict subside, many remain displaced for years. Around 65.8 million people were newly displaced in 2024 by both conflict and disasters. But millions of others already were living in displacement at the start of the year.At the end of 2024, about 83.4 million people were living in displacement worldwide. The vast majority, around 73.5 million, had been forced to move because of conflict — a 10 percent increase over the previous year.Still, disaster-related displacement is rising even faster. About 9.8 million people worldwide were living in displacement from disasters at the end of 2024 — a 29 percent increase over 2023.Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. 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U.S. President Donald Trump opened his four-day Middle East trip on Tuesday by paying a visit to Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, for talks on U.S. efforts to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, end the war in Gaza, hold down oil prices and more.Prince Mohammed warmly greeted Trump as he stepped off Air Force One at King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital and kicked off his Middle East tour.The two leaders then retreated to a grand hall at the Riyadh airport, where Trump and his aides were served traditional Arabic coffee by waiting attendants wearing ceremonial gun-belts. Fighter jet escort The pomp began before Trump even landed. Royal Saudi Air Force F-15s provided an honorary escort for Air Force One as it approached the kingdom’s capital.Trump and Prince Mohammed also took part in a lunch at the Royal Court, gathering with guests and aides in an ornate room with blue accents and massive crystal chandeliers.As he greeted business titans with Trump by his side, Prince Mohammed was animated and smiling.It was a stark contrast to his awkward fist bump with then-President Joe Biden, who looked to avoid being seen on camera shaking hands with the prince during a 2022 visit to the kingdom.Biden had decided to pay a visit to Saudi Arabia as he looked to alleviate soaring prices at the pump for motorists at home and around the globe.At the time, Prince Mohammed’s reputation had been badly damaged by a U.S. intelligence determination that found he had ordered the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.But that dark moment appeared to be distant memory for the prince as he rubbed elbows with high-profile business executives — including Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — in front of the cameras and with Trump by his side.Later, the crown prince will fete Trump with a formal dinner. Trump is also slated to take part Tuesday in a U.S.-Saudi investment conference.“When Saudis and Americans join forces, very good things happen — more often than not, great things happen,” Saudi Investment Minister Khalid al-Falih said. Oil production Saudi Arabia and fellow OPEC+ nations have already helped their cause with Trump early in his second term by stepping up oil production. Trump sees cheap energy as a key component to lowering costs and stemming inflation for Americans. The Republican president has also made the case that lower oil prices will hasten an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.But Saudi Arabia’s economy remains heavily dependent on oil, and the kingdom needs a fiscal break-even oil price of $96 to $98 a barrel to balance its budget. It’s questionable how long OPEC+, of which Saudi Arabia is the leading member, is willing to keep production elevated. The price of a barrel of Brent crude closed Monday at $64.77.“One of the challenges for the Gulf states of lower oil prices is it doesn’t necessarily imperil economic diversification programs, but it certainly makes them harder,” said Jon Alterman, a senior Middle East analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Qatar and UAE next Trump picked the kingdom for his first stop, because it has pledged to make big investments in the U.S., but Trump ended up traveling to Italy last month for Pope Francis’ funeral. Riyadh was the first overseas stop of his first term.The three countries on the president’s itinerary — Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — are all places where the Trump Organization, run by Trump’s two elder sons, is developing major real estate projects. They include a high-rise tower in Jeddah, a luxury hotel in Dubai and a golf course and villa complex in Qatar.Trump is trying to demonstrate that his transactional strategy for international politics is paying dividends as he faces criticism from Democrats who say his global tariff war and approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine are isolating the United States from allies.He’s expected to announce deals with the three wealthy countries that will touch on artificial intelligence, expanding energy cooperation and perhaps new arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The administration earlier this month announced initial approval to sell $3.5 billion worth of air-to-air missiles for Saudi Arabia’s fighter jets.But Trump arrived in the Middle East at a moment when his top regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are far from neatly aligned with his approach. Trump’s decision to skip Israel remarkable, expert says Before the trip, Trump announced that Washington was halting a nearly two-month U.S. airstrike campaign against Yemen’s Houthis, saying the Iran-backed rebels have pledged to stop attacking ships along a vital global trade route.The administration didn’t notify Israel — which the Houthis continue to target — of the agreement before Trump publicly announced it. It was the latest example of Trump leaving the Israelis in the dark about his administration’s negotiations with common adversaries.In March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t notified by the administration until after talks began with Hamas about the war in Gaza. And Netanyahu found out about the ongoing U.S. nuclear talks with Iran only when Trump announced them during an Oval Office visit by the Israeli leader last month.“Israel will defend itself by itself,” Netanyahu said last week following Trump’s Houthi truce announcement. “If others join us — our American friends — all the better.”William Wechsler, senior director of the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council, said Trump’s decision to skip Israel on his first Middle East visit is remarkable.“The main message coming out of this, at least as the itinerary stands today, is that the governments of the Gulf … are in fact stronger friends to President Trump than the current government of Israel at this moment,” Wechsler said. Restarting efforts to normalize Israel-Saudi ties Trump, meanwhile, hopes to restart his first-term effort to normalize relations between the Middle East’s major powers, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Trump’s Abraham Accords effort led to Sudan, the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco agreeing to normalize relations with Israel.But Riyadh has made clear that in exchange for normalization it wants U.S. security guarantees, assistance with the kingdom’s nuclear program and progress on a pathway to Palestinian statehood. There seems to be scant hope for making headway on a Palestinian state with the Israel-Hamas war raging and the Israelis threatening to flatten and occupy Gaza.Prince Mohammed last week notably hosted Palestinian Vice President Hussein Sheikh in Jeddah on the sheikh’s first foreign visit since assuming office in April.Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the crown prince appeared to be subtly signaling to Trump that the kingdom needs to see progress on Palestinian statehood for the Saudis to begin seriously moving on a normalization deal with the Israelis.“Knowing how the Saudis telegraph their intentions, that’s a preemptive, ‘Don’t even think of asking us to show any goodwill toward normalization,'” Abdul-Hussain said. Madhani reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. —Zeke Miller, Aamer Madhani and Jon Gambrell, Associated Press