Climate Refugees

A discussion of cutting-edge developments in policy on climate change and forced displacement from leading academics and practitioners.

Heartbreaking stories and pictures documenting the phenomenon of populations displaced by climate change—homes, neighborhoods, livelihoods, and cultures lost. "Our job is to tell stories we have heard and to bear witness to what we have seen. The science was already there when we started in 2004, but we wanted to emphasize the human dimension, especially for those most vulnerable." —Guy-Pierre Chomette, Collectif Argos We have all seen photographs of neighborhoods wrecked and abandoned after a hurricane, of dry, cracked terrain that was once fertile farmland, of islands wiped out by a tsunami. But what happens to the people who live in these areas? According to the United Nations, some 150 million people will become climate refugees by 2050. The journalists and photographers of Collectif Argos have spent four years seeking out the first wave of people displaced by the consequences of climate change. Using the massive 2,500-page report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as their guide, these photographers and writers pinpointed nine locales around the world in which global warming has had a measureable impact. In Climate Refugees, they take us to these places—from the dust bowl that was once Lake Chad to the melting permafrost in Alaska—offering a first-hand look in words and photographs at the devastating effects of rising global temperatures on the daily lives of ordinary people. Climate Refugees shows us damage wrought to homes and livelihoods by rapid warming near the Arctic; rising sea levels that threaten the island nations of Tuvulu, the Maldives, and Halligen; farmers displaced by the desert's advance in Chad and China; floods that wash away life in Bangladesh; and Hurricane Katrina evacuees in shelters far away from their New Orleans neighborhoods. Added to the devastating environmental effect of climate change is the immeasurable and irretrievable loss of ethnic and cultural diversity that occurs when vulnerable local cultures disperse. It is this often forgotten and tragic consequence of global warming that Collectif Argos painstakingly documents. Collectif Argos Guy-Pierre Chomette Guillaume Collanges Hélène David Jérômine Derigny Cédric Faimali Donatien Garnier Eléonore Henry de Frahan Aude Raux Laurent Weyl Jacques Windenberger

This book studies the topic of forced climate migrants (commonly referred to as “climate refugees”) through the lens of international law and identifies the reasons why these migrants should be granted international protection. Through an analysis focused on climate change and human rights international law, it points out the legal principles and rules upon which an international obligation to protect persons forced to migrate due to climate change is emerging. Sciaccaluga advocates for a state obligation to protect climate migrants when their origin countries have become extremely environmentally fragile due to climate change—to the point of becoming unable to guarantee the exercise of inalienable human rights in their territories. Turning to the future, this book then investigates the current elements on which a “forced climate migrants law” could be built, ultimately arguing for the duty to provide some form of assistance to forced climate migrants in a third state within the international legal system.

Current estimates of the numbers of people who will be forced from their homes as a result of climate change by the middle of the century range from 50 to 200 million. Therefore, even the most optimistic projections envisage a crisis of migration that will dwarf any we have seen so far. And yet attempts to develop legal mechanisms to deal with this impending crisis have reached an impasse that shows little sign of being overcome. This is in spite of the rapidly growing academic study and policy development in the area of climate change generally. 'Climate Refugees': Beyond the Legal Impasse? addresses a fundamental gap in academic literature and policy making – namely the legal ‘no-man’s land’ in which the issue of climate refugees currently resides. Past proposals for the regulation of climate-induced migration are evaluated, inter alia by their original authors, and the volume also looks at current attempts to regulate climate-induced migration, including by officials from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Platform on Displacement Disaster (PDD). Bringing together experts from a variety of academic fields, as well as officials from leading international organisations, this book will be of great interest to students and researchers of Environmental Law, Refugee Law, Human Rights Law, Environmental Studies and International Relations.

In a world where temperatures fluctuate and extreme weather has become commonplace, several populations have already found themselves unable to survive in their homeland. Droughts, flooding, and crop failures have caused famine, while extreme weather events like hurricanes and tornadoes have destroyed homes and, at times, whole villages. The articles in this collection examine the phenomenon of climate refugees, including the reasons they must move, the impact it has on humans and the economy, and examining the politics and other factors that affect their arrival in new countries.

Climate Change, Disasters and the Refugee Convention is concerned with refugee status determination (RSD) in the context of disasters and climate change. It demonstrates that the legal predicament of people who seek refugee status in this connection has been inconsistently addressed by judicial bodies in leading refugee law jurisdictions, and identifies epistemological as well as doctrinal impediments to a clear and principled application of international refugee law. Arguing that RSD cannot safely be performed without a clear understanding of the relationship between natural hazards and human agency, the book draws insights from disaster anthropology and political ecology that see discrimination as a contributory cause of people's differential exposure and vulnerability to disaster-related harm. This theoretical framework, combined with insights derived from the review of existing doctrinal and judicial approaches, prompts a critical revision of the dominant human rights-based approach to the refugee definition.

“Deals masterfully with a neglected crisis, how climate change is driving migration . . . The work broaches solutions both practical . . . and political.”—Christopher E. Goldthwait, former US Ambassador With global climate change upon us, it is imperative to start thinking about the massive numbers of people who will be displaced by environmental crises. The rise in sea levels alone will account for hundreds of millions of refugees around the globe. In Rising Tides, John R. Wennersten and Denise Robbins face the difficult questions that will have to be answered: How will people be relocated and settled? Is it possible to offer environmental refugees temporary or permanent asylum? Will these refugees have any collective rights in the new areas they inhabit? And lastly, who will pay the costs of all the affected countries during the process of resettlement? Offering an essential, continent-by-continent look at these dangers, Rising Tides is “a passionately argued, well-documented wake-up call on the dire, current and undeniable human fallout from climate change. Looking behind the headlines, it connects the dots in a way that will inform and should alarm us all” (Eugene L. Meyer, author of Five for Freedom). “This chilling and urgent call to action spares no detail in its mission to present the facts on a looming humanitarian disaster. Climate-change warning messages too often focus on the environment without going into specifics of how humans will be hurt by global warming. Rising Tides singlehandedly rectifies this issue.”—Foreword Reviews “A must read for policymakers and those in positions of power, especially the ones who remain in a state of denial about climate change and refuse to do enough to address the crisis.”—The Hindu

This book addresses the forms of legal protection extended to people displaced due to the consequences of climate change, and who have either become refugees by crossing international borders or are climatically displaced persons (CDPs) in their own homelands. It explores the legal response of the South Asian Jurisdictions to these refugee-like situations, and also to what extent these people are protected under current international law. The book critically examines and assesses whether States have obligations to protect people displaced by climate change under international refugee law (IRL) and international climate change law (ICCL). It discusses the issue of climate migration in South Asia, analyzes the legal and judicial response initiated by South Asian nations, and also investigates the role of SAARC in relation to climate change and climate refugees. Drawing on the International Legal Standards and States’ Practices in South Asia regarding climate refugees, the book shows how IRL, ICCL, and IHRL (international human rights law) have been used to address and identify the gaps in the global legal protection framework concerning the contours of the normative debate on climate refugees, climate change displacement, migration, forced migration, susceptibility to climate change, typology of climate change-induced displacement, role of the SAARC and its municipal legal systems, approaches to climate change, human mobility and developing a hybrid regional law, or advocating a legal alternative of equal measure in a region characterized by diversity and multiculturalism. The book offers valuable takeaways for students, researchers, consultants, practitioners and policymakers alike.