Colliding Crises: How the climate crisis fuels gender-based violence

Climate change is fuelling a global surge in violence against women and girls, with one in 10 cases of intimate partner violence projected to be linked to climate impacts by the end of the century, a new United Nations report has warned. For every degree Celsius increase in global temperature, cases of intimate partner violence rise by nearly 5 per cent. The report, released by the UN Spotlight Initiative on April 23, 2025, warned that without urgent intervention, climate change could be linked to one in every ten cases of intimate partner violence (IPV) by the end of the century. It revealed a stark correlation between rising temperatures and increased violence, noting that for every 1°C rise in global temperature, incidents of IPV increased by 4.7 per cent. In a scenario where global heating reaches 2°C, an additional 40 million women and girls could face IPV each year by 2090. That figure more than doubled under a 3.5°C warming pathway. The report highlighted that gender-based violence is already a global epidemic. More than one billion women — at least one in three — have experienced physical, sexual or psychological abuse in their lifetime.