Climate Change And Migration

To date, there are only a few cases where climate change is the sole factor prompting migration. The clearest examples are in the Pacific Islands. The sea level is rising at a rate of 12 millimeters per year in the western Pacific and has already submerged eight islands. Two more are on the brink of disappearing, prompting a wave of migration to larger countries.910 By 2100, it is estimated that 48 islands overall will be lost to the rising ocean.11 In 2015, the Teitota family applied for refugee status in New Zealand, fleeing the disappearing island nation of Kiribati.12 Their case, the first request for refuge explicitly attributed climate change, made it to the High Court of New Zealand but was ultimately dismissed. Islands in the Federated States of Micronesia have drastically reduced in size, washed down to an uninhabitable state, had their fresh water contaminated by the inflow of seawater, and disappeared in the past decade.13 Despite their extreme vulnerability, the relatively small population (2.3 million people spread across 11 countries14) and remote location of the Pacific Islands means that they garner little international action, for all the attention they receive in the media.

As gradually worsening climate patterns and, even more so, severe weather events, prompt an increase in human mobility, people who choose to move will do so with little legal protection. The current system of international law is not equipped to protect climate migrants, as there are no legally binding agreements obliging countries to support climate migrants.

While there are no legally binding international regimes that protect climate migrants, there are voluntary compacts that could be used to support them. Most notably, 193 countries adopted the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which address both migration and climate change.

Several of the 169 targets established by the SDGs lay out general goals that could be used to protect climate migrants. SDG 13 on climate action outlines several targets that address the climate crisis:

The scale and scope of climate change demand dynamic and comprehensive solutions. The U.S. must address climate stress on vulnerable populations specifically, rather than funneling more money into existing programs that operate on the periphery of the growing crisis.

While the current administration has deemphasized or opposed climate-friendly approaches, the current security implications of the migration crisis might prompt a re-examination of those policies. There should be bipartisan support, particularly in the security community, for reducing the conditions that accelerate international migration.

Climate change is imposing intolerable extremes on many parts of the world, threatening the livelihoods of tens of millions of people. The worsening problem has stoked the debate over how to classify and protect international climate migrants under international law.

Climate migration occurs when people leave their homes due to extreme weather events, including floods, heat waves, droughts, and wildfires, as well as slower-moving climate challenges such as rising seas and intensifying water stress. This form of migration is increasing because the world has not been able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and halt global average temperature rise, which leads to more climate disasters.

Climate migrants have some basic rights under existing international human rights law, but advocates say they lack many important protections afforded to other groups, such as refugees. Governments are responsible for any internal climate migrants, but there are few instances in which governments are obligated to protect those crossing borders.

The 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which was created to manage European refugees from World War II, as well as its expansion (via protocol) in 1967, established the fundamental rights of refugees. This more limited classification of people is defined as those fleeing violence or persecution. However, migrants fleeing climate extremes are not currently protected under international law, and there is no consensus on how to legally define them.

There are more recent documents, however, including the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants [PDF] and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM) [PDF], that provide governments with a framework for how to handle climate migration. The GCM recognizes climate change as a factor in driving migration, but it does not outline special legal protections for those affected.

Some experts say that opportunities for reform to better protect climate migrants include revising the 1951 convention to include language on climate migration and creating a new Climate Refugee Convention.

Amending the 1951 convention would require adding a protocol, similar to the one created in 1967, aimed at defining the characteristics of climate refugees and granting them protections similar to those enjoyed by other refugees. Another option is to create a new convention specifically addressing the rights and needs of climate refugees. But the prospects for either of these happening in the next few years are slim, experts say, given the disagreements over how to classify climate migrants, the broader debate about how to address climate change, and the erosion of refugee protections more generally. Refugee advocates are wary of reopening the 1951 convention, for fear of governments further limiting the definition in renewed discussions.

Most climate migrants move within the borders of their homelands, usually from rural areas to cities after losing their home or livelihood because of drought, rising seas or another weather calamity. Because cities also are facing their own climate-related problems, including soaring temperatures and water scarcity, people are increasingly being forced to flee across international borders to seek refuge.

Yet climate migrants are not afforded refugee status under the 1951 Refugee Convention, which provides legal protection only to people fleeing persecution due to their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or particular social group.

While no nation offers asylum to climate migrants, UNHCR published legal guidance in October 2020 that opens the door for offering protection to people displaced by the effects of global warming. It said that climate change should be taken into consideration in certain scenarios when it intersects with violence, though it stopped short of redefining the 1951 Refugee Convention.

The commission acknowledged that temporary protection may be insufficient if a country cannot remedy the situation from natural disasters, such as rising seas, suggesting that certain climate displaced people could be eligible for resettlement if their place of origin is considered uninhabitable.

An increasing number of countries are laying the groundwork to become safe havens for climate migrants. In May, Argentina created a special humanitarian visa for people from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean displaced by natural disasters to let them stay for three years.

Low-lying Bangladesh, which is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, has been among the first to try to adapt to the new reality of migration. Efforts are underway to identify climate-resilient towns where people displaced by sea level rise, river erosion, cyclonic storms and intrusion of saline water can move to work, and in return help their new locations economically.

With hundreds of millions of people expected to be uprooted by natural disasters, there is growing discussion about how to manage migration flows rather than stop them, as for many people migration will become a survival tool, according to advocates.

This article, the first in a series on global climate migration, is a partnership between ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, with support from the Pulitzer Center. Read Part 2 and Part 3, and more about the data project that underlies the reporting.

Climate-related migration will cause three-fold challenges for NATO. First, it may contribute to instability by straining governance in countries where NATO may deploy training or support forces. Second, climate-related migration may heighten the possibility of destabilising, reactive responses from Europe. Third, political forces in some countries may take advantage of the opportunity to sow chaos and instrumentalise migration.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II (WGII) report on Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability notes that it is the combination of climate change impacts and poor governance which will provoke migration from rural to urban areas. Though migration can be a positive adaptation strategy, in places where governance is already fragile it is more likely to contribute to instability and conflict, especially when combined with other political, societal, and security challenges. These at-risk countries include places in which NATO currently operates training and support missions, including Iraq and sub-Saharan Africa.

In response to years of refugee influx from places like Syria and Afghanistan, some NATO member countries have become less willing to open their borders and welcome additional migrants. If not coordinated and managed ahead of time, haphazard responses and nativist reactions from European nations to a growing migration wave will cause greater security risks to migrants and states alike. For instance, nativist policies can engender an increase in anti-immigrant violence while increasing migrant vulnerability and decreasing legal avenues for protection. In addition, reactive and ad-hoc policy responses can undermine civil society and trust in government, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The current Ukrainian migrant crisis and the generous response from destination nations in Europe may encourage NATO member countries to examine and revise migration policies in general. P