UN warns unprecedented El Niño threatens millions; calls for urgent aid

The World Meteorological Organization warns that sea‑surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific may climb to 3.8 °C above the long‑term average between November 2026 and January 2027. An anomaly of just 0.5 °C normally triggers an El Niño alert, while past events with 3 °C anomalies produced “very substantive impacts”. This year’s projected gap exceeds all observations from the past four decades, leaving scientists without historical data to predict the full range of weather extremes that could follow.

The UN estimates that up to 50 million people could face heightened hunger as heat, droughts and floods intensify. In Africa, the African Development Bank projects that the phenomenon may cost between $10 billion and $20 billion and shave 1 % to 2 % off regional GDP. Emergency needs are already acute in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, where rains are expected to arrive soon. In Yemen, more than four million displaced persons live on land prone to flash flooding, adding a climate‑driven layer to an already fragile humanitarian situation.

To curb the looming crisis, the UN’s emergency relief chief announced the release of over $50 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund for 11 countries, including Chad, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan. The money will fund seeds, livestock protection, flood‑defence infrastructure and other resilience measures. Parallel risk‑reduction projects are already underway: massive barriers in Chile’s Antofagasta region, a five‑year shelter plan in Madagascar, a safer‑shelter roadmap in Nigeria, and a 2.5 km flood‑diversion channel in Yemen’s Al‑Hazm district. The next two weeks are deemed critical to prevent the forecasted humanitarian disaster.