Climate Migration: The Need to Recognize and Assist Climate-Displaced People

As climate change progresses, a new crisis is unfolding: droughts, floods, wildfires, storms, and rising sea levels are drastically increasing the number of climate-displaced people.[1] More than 20 million people flee their homes each year,[2] and experts expect this number to grow. Both the United States[3] and the international community[4] consider climate change a threat multiplier. By exacerbating existing conditions such as food insecurity, water scarcity, resource competition, political instability, and conflict, climate change is driving waves of migration.[5]

Many climate migrants are internally displaced people who remain within their country’s borders, typically migrating from rural to urban areas, and migration from natural disasters is often temporary.[6] However, the increasing number of cross-border migrants face a major issue: they are unrecognized and unprotected under our existing international framework.[7]

Climate migrants are often called “climate refugees,” but they are not refugees under international law.[8] The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees[9] and 1967 Protocol[10] define a refugee as someone who flees their country because of a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, [or] membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”[11] This Convention established non-refoulement[12] as the foundational principle of international refugee law, and the Protocol broadened its reach by removing geographic and temporal limits.[13] Climate migrants do not meet the Convention’s definition of a refugee, so they do not have its rights and protections.[14]

The simplest solution might seem to be expanding the Convention’s definition of “refugees” to include climate migrants.[15] Doing so would fill the “legal void”[16] in our global migration framework, but this also raises several concerns[17] and lacks popular support.[18] First, there is no international consensus of what constitutes a “climate migrant.”[19] Climate is also distinct from the five current grounds for refugee status because climate is often an indirect cause of migration that occurs in conjunction with other factors.[20] As a result, it is difficult to pinpoint as the cause of migration.[21] Some raise concerns that incorporating climate migrants into the definition might obscure its meaning.[22] In turn, this might weaken the effectiveness of the 1951 Convention and prevent vulnerable refugees from receiving its protections.[23]

Various countries have pursued other means of assisting climate-displaced people. For example, Australia and Tuvalu signed the world’s first bilateral climate migration treaty, the Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union Treaty, allowing Tuvaluans threatened by rising sea levels to obtain permanent residence in Australia.[24] Elsewhere, Argentina established a visa program for people from the Caribbean, Central America, and Mexico who experience natural disasters.[25] And, forty-eight African countries have adopted the Kampala Ministerial Declaration on Migration, Environment, and Climate Change, committing, in part, to “implement treaties, pacts, protocols, and regulations on free movement of people, labour mobility, and transhumance.”[26] Some other countries have amended their own definition of “refugees.” For example, by adopting the Cartagena Declaration, eleven Latin American countries have included “other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order.” [27] This definition has been interpreted to cover climate migrants.[28]

These separate efforts are beneficial and may serve as a model, but the migration crisis demands international cooperation. Given the scale of the issue, unique threats posed by climate change, and drawbacks of amending the 1951 Convention, a new convention to address climate migrants is warranted. Existing efforts among nations reflect the importance of mitigating contributions to climate change, increasing the resiliency of vulnerable regions, and protecting those still forced to flee. Fundamentally, the international community must reach a consensus to legally classify climate-displaced people and commit to addressing their needs.

Catherine Rayward is a staff member of Fordham International Law Journal Volume XLVIII.

[1] Five Ways the Climate Crisis Impacts Human Security, U.N., https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/human-security.

[2] Id.

[3] See John Podesta & Jake Sullivan, A U.S. Framework for Climate Resilience and Security, The White House, (Sept. 20, 2024), https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2024/09/20/a-u-s-framework-for-climate-resilience-and-security/.

[4] Kristy Siegfried, Climate Change and Displacement: the Myths and Facts, UNHCR (Nov. 15, 2023), https://www.unhcr.org/us/news/stories/climate-change-and-displacement-myths-and-facts

[5] U.N., supra note 1.

[6] Shelly Culbertson, Understanding Climate Migration, Rand, https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/11/understanding-climate-migration.html.

[7] Caitlan M. Sussman, A Global Migration Framework Under Water: How Can the International Community Protect Climate Refugees, 2.1 CJIL. ONLINE. 41, 50 (2023).

[8] Id.

[9] Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Jul. 28, 1951, 189 U.N.T.S. 137.

[10] Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, Jan. 31, 1967, 606 U.N.T.S. 267.

[11] Id.

[12] Non-refoulment is the principle that a refugee “should not be returned to a country where he or she faces serious threats to his or her life or freedom.” About UNHCR: The 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR, https://www.unhcr.org/us/about-unhcr/overview/1951-refugee-convention 

[13] Id.

[14] Sussman, supra note 7.

[15] See id.

[16] António Guterres, Remarks at the Intergovernmental Meeting at Ministerial Level to mark the 60th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, Dec. 8, 2011 (transcript available at https://www.unhcr.org/au/publications/intergovernmental-meeting-ministerial-level-mark-60th-anniversary-1951-convention).

[17] Lawrence Huang, Climate Migration 101: An Explainer, MPI, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/climate-migration-101-explainer#:~:text=There%20is%20no%20international%20legal,not%20grounds%20for%20international%20protection.

[18] Anna Bailey-Morley, Moving Beyond the Refugee Convention Impasse on Climate Displacement: Skills Mobility Partnerships, Baker Institute (May 2, 2024), https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/moving-beyond-refugee-convention-impasse-climate-displacement-skills-mobility-partnerships.

[19] Id.

[20] Id.

[21] Id.

[22] Dina Ionesco, Let’s Talk about Climate Migrants, Not Climate Refugees, U.N., https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/06/lets-talk-about-climate-migrants-not-climate-refugees/.

[23] Id.

[24] Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union Treaty, Austl. DFA, https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/tuvalu/australia-tuvalu-falepili-union-treaty.

[25] Huang, supra note 17.

[26] Kampala Ministerial Declaration on Migration, Environment and Climate Change, Jul. 29, 2022, IOM, https://environmentalmigration.iom.int/sites/g/files/tmzbdl1411/files/documents/Kampala%20Ministerial%20Declaration%20on%20MECC_English%20signed.pdf.

[27] Liliana Lyra Jubilut ET AL., The Cartagena Declaration at 35 and Refugee Protection in Latin America, E-IR, https://www.e-ir.info/pdf/80667.

[28] Id.

This is a student blog post and in no way represents the views of the Fordham International Law Journal.