Jennings and Mayewski Carnegie Institute: In Yemen, Climate Finance Must Respond to Entrenched Instability
The world’s climate adaptation funds must adapt to address the ways that climate change is deepening state fragility.
By Ray Salvatore Jennings and Paul Andrew Mayewski
Published on Jun 25, 2026
Introduction
Yemen is one of the world’s most fragile states. A decade of war has fractured authority, degraded infrastructure, and left millions dependent on humanitarian assistance. Yet fragility in Yemen is not defined by conflict alone. It is also shaped by accelerating climate stress that interacts with weak institutions in ways that deepen vulnerability and complicate recovery.
Climate change did not cause Yemen’s war. Political exclusion, economic mismanagement, regional rivalries, and armed mobilization preceded the current phase of violent conflict that began in 2014. As temperatures rise, rainfall patterns change, and extreme weather events become more frequent across the Middle East, climate stress is no longer a background condition, however. Across the region, warming has surpassed the global average in recent decades, with increasingly intense heat waves becoming more common (see figure 1). And precipitation has also decreased compared to global averages (see figure 2). In Yemen, these pressures unfold within a landscape marked by territorial fragmentation, damaged service delivery systems, and contested control over infrastructure. Under such conditions, environmental stress does not simply add to existing governance burdens; it entrenches instability and directly impacts the way recovery and peacebuilding efforts must operate.