Climate Refugees

Called "the world's forgotten victims" by the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 2018, an average of 21.5 million people are displaced by climate change each year. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) predicts that there may be as many as 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050. The UNHCR also estimates that, without drastic change in climate policy, climate-related disasters could mean that nearly 200 million people each year might require humanitarian assistance by 2050 - double the current number.

Climate refugees currently lack any formal protection, as the 1951 Refugee Convention only extends asylum to individuals who fear persecution in their home country. Though the vast majority of climate refugees remain within their home nations, those that do need to cross national borders lack any formal means of seeking asylum protections from foreign nations. Indeed, there is not even an agreed-upon definition for climate refugees, nor is there a clear way to track the actual numbers. Climate change often prompts multiple, cascading negative events - for instance, desertification can lead to crop and livestock failure, which will increase food and energy costs, perhaps resulting in, or exacerbated by social upheaval, and any of these effects might force migration. making the tracking of root causes challenging. Said Andrew Harper, UNHCR Special Advisor on Climate Action, "We need to make the linkage between climate change, vulnerability, and displacement in order to anticipate at risk populations well in advance. By using anticipatory approaches we can become a less reactive agency that is better prepared to provide protection and address the most urgent challenges now and in the future."

Of course, there is a disparity of action between the nations that pollute the most and those that are most affected. Said Ian Fry, UN Special Rapporteur on climate change, “countries that are historically most responsible for the climate crisis spend more money securing their borders to keep migrants out than on tackling the crisis that forces people from their homes in the first place.” 

Several regions in the world are at risk for great tumult due to climate change, including Latin America, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. However, perhaps most dramatic are the island nations of the world, where rising sea levels threaten to consume their lands. In 1990, ahead of the Second UN World Climate Conference, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) was created to amplify the political power of these small, sometimes underdeveloped, nations. Now 44 members strong, AOSIS works diligently with the UN to advocate for the strong action on climate change that is necessary to save their homelands. Indeed, the lowest-lying member nations, including Tuvalu, the Maldives, the Soloman Islands, Kiribati, and the Bahamas will disappear completely within 50-100 years if sea levels continue to rise at their current rate.  

Even within the United States, we have seen and will continue to see migration due to climate-related catastrophes. The most severe crisis in recent history are the fires in Maui, which, as of August 2023 have left at least 115 dead, 388 missing, and thousands displaced and have caused over 5.5 billion in damages. Yet this is one event among many: by the end of July (that is, predating the Maui fires), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had already recorded 15 weather events with damages of at least 1 billion in the United States in 2023, more than any previous year to date since records have been kept since 1980. And yet, as documented by German Lopez in the New York Times, "Americans are not moving to to climate-friendly places today. If anything, many more have moved away. One of the fastest-growing U.S. cities is Phoenix, which has suffered temperatures above 110 degrees Fahrenheit for much of this summer. That trend could start to change as people endure more disasters."

Further Reading

Government and United Nations Reports

European Parliament. "The Concept of Climate Refugee: Towards a Possible Definition." October 2021. 

Prange, Mia. "Climate Change is Fueling Migration: Do Climate Migrants Have Legal Protections?" Council on Foreign Relations, 19 December 2022. 

United Nations High Commission on Refugees,."Climate change is the defining crisis of our time and it particularly impacts the displaced." UNHCR website. 

The White House. Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration. Biden Administration, October 2021.

Journalism

Erdman, Jonathan, "15 Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters Hit the US This Year, A Record Pace, NOAA Says." The Weather Channel, 8 August 2023.

Lopez, German. "Finding Climate Havens." New York Times, 23 August 2023. 

Advocacy

https://www.climate-refugees.org/