Why housing belongs at the centre of climate action

Globally, 2.8 billion people lack access to adequate housing.

Millions live in homes and settlements that are unable to withstand increasingly frequent climate shocks. Many more face growing risks from flooding, storms, extreme heat and environmental degradation.

It is no surprise that safe, adequate housing would protect people from these impacts. More than providing protection, adequate housing would facilitate better, healthier lives. A stable home strengthens health outcomes, supports economic resilience, reduces disaster risk, improves protection and contributes to progress across multiple Sustainable Development Goals.

Despite these clear benefits, less than 1% of Official Development Assistance is allocated to housing. As climate impacts intensify and displacement increases, this gap becomes increasingly difficult to justify.

Climate-related migration

Habitat for Humanity’s research shows that while climate change can drive displacement between countries, most climate-related migration is internal, often from rural areas into rapidly growing cities. These cities are often unequipped to handle the influx, and people are pushed into informal settlements that are already under pressure from the existing population.

As our research shows, despite these settlements’ inability to absorb new arrivals, they are becoming central sites of both climate vulnerability and adaptation. So often, climate adaptation is discussed in terms of energy, infrastructure and technology. Yet for millions of people, climate change is experienced through flooded homes, extreme heat, damaged settlements, loss of livelihoods and displacement, and climate migration is one way they adapt. But without targeted investment in housing and settlement upgrading, such migration will continue to deepen inequality, trapping people in cycles of insecurity rather than offering a pathway to resilience.

The central role of housing in development, humanitarian and climate responses

Housing is too often treated as the outcome of development rather than the infrastructure that makes development possible. When it is separated from infrastructure planning and investment, it is inevitably deprioritised, despite being the place where people experience both climate risk and resilience most directly.

Part of this challenge is also structural. Climate, humanitarian and development conversations continue to happen largely in silos, and while each addresses different dimensions of risk, exclusion and resilience, housing sits at the intersection of all of them.

Humanitarian actors understandably prioritise emergency shelter, while development actors often view housing as a longer-term concern. Yet for people living through crisis, these distinctions do not exist.

Without access to a safe and stable home, recovery stalls, educational outcomes suffer, health deteriorates, livelihoods remain fragile and people’s climate vulnerability soars. Too often, people remain trapped in temporary or inadequate living conditions for years, sometimes decades, while the systems designed to support them remain organised around short-term interventions. The end result is fragmented policy, fragmented funding and fragmented outcomes. All of which fail to create the housing pathways people need to move from crisis to long-term stability.

Climate action is about protecting people – and housing plays a key role

There are, however, encouraging signs of change. Recent discussions at the World Urban Forum focused heavily on housing, and the FCDO’s Global Partnerships Conference reflected growing recognition that no single actor can solve today’s interconnected challenges alone.

While this shift is welcome, an important question remains: are these new partnerships and discussions relevant to how people actually experience climate risk, displacement and insecurity on the ground? For most people, climate risk becomes real through the condition of their home and community, not through global frameworks.

Ultimately, climate action is about protecting people, something we won’t be able to do while inadequate housing continues to expose people to risk. Homes are where climate vulnerability becomes visible, but they are also where resilience is built. If housing remains absent from climate strategies, our response to climate change will remain incomplete. If we place housing at the centre, we will unlock a pathway that simultaneously advances adaptation, resilience, protection, economic opportunity and long-term development.

As London Climate Action Week discussions unfold, Habitat for Humanity GB’s view remains the same:  housing deserves a far more prominent place on the agenda, not as a sectoral concern or a future aspiration, but as a foundational part of effective climate action.

When homes fail, climate vulnerability accelerates. When homes are safe, secure and resilient, communities are better equipped to withstand, adapt to and recover from the challenges ahead.