Climate change brings significant risks to Mongolia, said Mongolian Prime Minister U.Khurelsukh on Friday when speaking at parliament on the issues of population resettlement and urban development in the country.

The prime minister noted that the situation of rural-to-urban migration in Mongolia has been intensifying due to climate-related natural disasters and the consequent problems of rapid urbanization pose “significant risks to our country, especially the capital of Ulaanbaatar.

The average temperature now in Mongolia is up 2.10 degrees Celsius from 1940, more than doubling the rise in average global temperature, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

Climate change is increasing the risk of natural disasters, including droughts and the extreme winter weather phenomenon known as “dzud” in Mongolia. Nearly 600,000 herders who lost their livestock during the dzuds have migrated to Ulaanbaatar over the past three decades, official data showed.

Mongolia has a population of 3.2 million, of which 66 percent live in urban areas.