The Climate Centre was established in 2002 by the Netherlands Red Cross  (NLRC) and the IFRC, and is hosted by the Netherlands Red Cross in The Hague, as a “Public Benefit Organization” (Algemeen Nut Beogende Instelling) under Dutch law.

Our overarching mission is to help the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and its partners reduce the impacts of climate change and extreme-weather events on vulnerable people, and we contributed to the new IFRC Framework for Climate Action Towards 2020 (two-page summaries are now available in English,French and Spanish).

(The Climate Centre is one of 12 current or planned reference centres hosted by various National Societies and delegated by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) as centres of excellence in their specialist areas.

They provide strategically important knowledge and advice on best practice throughout the Movement and beyond, based on the founding principles and thinking of the Red Cross Red Crescent. 

The Climate Centre helps to fulfill the groundbreaking commitments on climate made at the 30th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in November 2007 to:

• raise awareness on climate change
• ​provide humanitarian assistance
• improve response and preparedness
• decrease vulnerability of communities
• integrate climate risk management into policy and planning
• mobilize human and financial resources.