As climate change displaces millions through rising seas, droughts, and disasters, a global legal vacuum leaves climate refugees unprotected—demanding urgent international action and accountability from the world’s biggest polluters.
Introduction:
The rising sea levels are now swallowing islands – or at least threatening to. Farmlands are now becoming drought-stricken barren lands. Storms are becoming much more frequent and that much more destructive. Climate change is a great buzzword and a fun topic for conferences. However, when climate change makes people’s homes unliveable, where will they go?
Climate refugees, also known as ‘environmentally displaced persons’ are people who are forced to leave their homes and relocate. This could be because of sudden or gradual climate changes, rising sea levels, desertification, storms, and other extreme weather conditions.
Climate change, a discussion of the past is now a disaster in the present. With the changing climate conditions across the world, a growing displacement crisis is looming. However, changemakers across the globe remain woefully ignorant of the next big refugee crisis waiting to knock on their doors.
Defining the Crisis
When talking about the scope of the crisis, it is imperative to understand how far we have already come. According to UNHCR figures from 2023, over 21.5 million people have been forcibly displaced by weather-related disasters since 2008. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, there were 60.9 million internal displacements, or movements, recorded during 2022 across 151 countries and territories. A record 32.6 million were associated with disasters.
The picture only gets bleaker. World Bank estimates that without any urgent action, over 216 million people could become internal climate migrants by 2050 – especially across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. An estimate by the UNHCR claims that over 1.2 billion people could be displaced by 2050 due to climate change.
Many areas across the world are at an extreme risk. For example, the Pacific Islands (Kiribati, Tuvalu, and Marshall Islands) are extremely prone to climate-related disasters as rising sea levels are threatening to completely submerge some nations by the end of the century. To safeguard its people, Kiribati has already purchased land in Fiji as a ‘relocation option’.
Bangladesh is another example. It is extremely prone to flooding and cyclones – and the estimate is that 1 out of 7 Bengalis (around 13.3 million) could be displaced by climate change by 2050. Sub-Saharan Africa is another high-risk area. Desertification in the Sahel is pushing herders and farmers into conflict over dwindling usable land and water resources – and these conflicts could spread rapidly. An example of a country that has already suffered the consequences is Syria. The five-year drought in Syria forced 1.5 million people from rural to urban areas – which further added to the social unrest in the country.
The Legal/Policy Vacuum – What is Needed?
There is no legal or policy framework present for climate refugees. Even the 1951 Refugee Convention does not cover environmental displacement. An individual’s refugee status is limited to persecution – based on race, religious beliefs, nationality etcetera.
In the words of Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, “Climate refugees fall through the cracks of international protection”.
Moreover, despite the climate conferences and agreements that are periodically taking place across the globe, there is no international agreement on who takes responsibility for populations that are/will be displaced because of climate crises.
Unfortunately, developed and industrialized nations contribute most to emissions (and the effect is hardest on developing countries). According to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, “Those who are least responsible for climate change are suffering the most from its consequences”. However, the nations responsible are not truly ready to acknowledge the damage that they are causing – and are reluctant to open borders to climate refugees, now more than ever.
It should now be a part of every country’s agenda to start making changes in their own national policy/legal frameworks to incorporate the looming climate refugee crisis.
For example, The Kampala Convention (formally, the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa) is a treaty of the African Union (AU) that was created to address the internal displacement of people because of armed conflicts, natural disasters, and even large-scale development projects taking place in Africa. The Convention reinforces (in a legal sense) that the primary duty of lending support and protection to these internally displaced people is the State’s.
Developed nations should be funding and implementing international programs that can help them prepare communities that are likely to be most affected by the crisis. In the case of New Zealand, they had announced NZ$15.3 million in funding to implement a four-year program across five Pacific Island nations (Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Samoa, and Tonga). The program is focused on building the resilience of Pacific food systems in the face of the climate crisis.
Another suggestion is for developed countries to establish climate visa programs like the one New Zealand planned to introduce for the Pacific Islanders. This can ensure that there is a reasonable influx of refugees entering any country, ensure legal and easy processes for both sides and ultimately safeguard the refugees’ diginity and human rights.
Countries should also now push to update the outdated Refugee Convention so that there is a global agreement vis-a-vis the urgency of protecting climate refugees.
Conclusion:
Climate Change is no longer an environmental issue – it is a human rights crisis in the making. It is now the responsibility of every country to introduce and push for reforms, help and support the affected countries in mitigating the effects of the crisis, coordinate and partner up with each other, and ensure that systems and frameworks are in place to protect the rights of these climate refugees.
Aleena Im – is an independent researcher and writer and is interested in international relations, current affairs
