UN Agencies Mobilize Emergency Response as Historic El Niño Threatens Global Vulnerable Populations

Two United Nations agencies issued an urgent appeal Wednesday for immediate assistance to support communities already reeling from the strongest El Niño weather pattern ever recorded.

“The current El Niño event could be unprecedented in strength — literally off the monitoring charts we have used for the past four decades — and will peak towards the end of 2026, but its impacts will be felt long after that,” said Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

According to the latest Global Seasonal Climate Update from the WMO, sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific — the epicenter of the extreme El Niño phenomenon — may surge to 3.8°C above average between November 2026 and January 2027.

While a Pacific Ocean surface temperature anomaly of just 0.5°C above normal triggers an El Niño alert, Ms. Saulo emphasized that the consequences of a 3.8°C anomaly have no historical precedent.

Previous El Niño events linked to 3°C anomalies produced “very substantive impacts across the world,” but “we are beyond that limit, out of our records, out of our statistics of what we can expect,” the agency chief stressed.

“We are already witnessing extreme weather events and expect this to multiply and cascade as El Niño intensifies,” Ms. Saulo noted. “But a powerful El Niño does not have to be a recipe for humanitarian disaster. We have the science, the forecasts, and the early warnings to save lives and protect livelihoods.”

Echoing the call for preventive action to bolster resilience among the world’s most vulnerable communities, UN emergency relief chief Tom Fletcher described the looming El Niño as a “behemoth — a wrecking ball that will likely tear through Latin America, eastern and southern Africa, Asia, and the Pacific with extreme heat, droughts, and floods.”

The next two weeks will be critical to averting a worsening humanitarian crisis, Mr. Fletcher said, adding that Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya urgently require funding and emergency supplies positioned before heavy rains arrive.

In southern Africa, the priority is delivering seeds and safeguarding livestock, while Central America needs immediate support to protect livelihoods. Across Asia and the Pacific, countries must brace for a spectrum of climate shocks, including droughts, floods, and cyclones.

“It would be an extraordinary failure to see this crisis coming, to hear the predictions from the experts, and yet still squander the opportunity to protect people in its path,” Mr. Fletcher warned.

Some 50 million people could face increased hunger due to the weather phenomenon, he stressed, citing an African Development Bank estimate that the event will cost African countries between $10 and $20 billion and drive down GDP by one to two percent.

To support resilience efforts, the UN’s top aid official announced the release of more than $50 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund to assist 11 nations on the front lines, including Chad, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Somalia, and South Sudan.

The long-term impact “will be felt for months and potentially years to come,” Mr. Fletcher continued, citing additional strains on the humanitarian system from global supply chain disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and the Black Sea, linked respectively to conflict between Iran and the United States and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

With a potentially devastating El Niño approaching, UN agencies are helping countries integrate disaster risk reduction into shelter and preparedness planning from the outset, rather than reacting after disaster strikes. Examples include:

Chile: Shifting rainfall patterns have brought deadly floods to several regions. In northern Antofagasta, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) helped construct massive barriers to hold back torrents of mud and debris.

Madagascar: Facing recurring cyclones, the national shelter cluster is developing a strategy that includes a five-year humanitarian action plan, with pilot projects running since early 2025 in the Atsimo Andrefana and Androy regions.

Nigeria: Despite aid cuts, the UN Disaster Risk Reduction Office (UNDRR) and the Global Shelter Cluster convened government, humanitarian, and environmental partners in June 2025 to begin work on a roadmap for safer shelter in areas struck by conflict and climate shocks.

Yemen: More than four million people are displaced, many on flood-prone land, with flash floods affecting over 100,000 households in 2024 alone. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR), UNDRR, and partners have backed community-led defenses, including a 2.5-kilometer flood diversion channel in the Al-Hazm district.

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