Climate change could displace millions of people from West Asia and is currently a driving factor for mass migration, according to several officials familiar with the matter, AFP reported on 30 October.

Hussein Abu Saddam, the head of the Egyptian Farmers Syndicate, told AFP that “young people migrate from rural areas abroad, or to large cities to work,” and that “climate factors” are the main reason for the migration.

Saddam also mentioned the “appearance of new parasites” that have been plaguing countries such as Egypt, all due to changes in weather conditions.

Egypt is considered one of the driest countries on earth and is unable to feed its population of 104.3 million people. Food imports make up 19.8 percent of total imports for the North African country.

“Roughly 90 percent of refugees come from countries that are the most vulnerable and least ready to adapt to the impacts of climate change,” the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) reports.

Amy Pope, deputy director of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), warned that “if people can’t farm, if people can’t work, if people can’t find food, they have few alternatives to displacement.”

Pope claimed that in 2021 alone “nearly three million people” were displaced by climate change in North Africa and West Asia, adding that the situation is “only getting worse.”

According to the World Bank, 216 million people could be internally displaced by climate change, 19.3 million in North Africa alone.

Other countries, such as Syria and Yemen, are affected even more due to ongoing conflicts, international terrorism, destroyed infrastructure, and economic blockades.

Syria’s 2022 wheat harvest has dropped by at least 75 percent from production levels the country held before the start of the US-backed war in 2011, according to a report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reports that Yemen is “highly vulnerable to climate change-related impacts such as drought, extreme flooding, pests, sudden disease outbreaks, changes of rainfall patterns, increased storm frequency/severity and sea level rise.”

Meanwhile, 75 percent of the country’s population is rural-based and highly dependent on the agricultural sector, which has suffered tremendous consequences from the Saudi-led aggressions, including the blockade of its ports and trading routes.