This article was originally included in our Fall 2024 edition.

In 2022, the United Nations Refugee Agency reported 43.4 million global refugees. ¹ In the last two years, that number has only grown, much of which is tied to climate change and its impacts. Climate change increases both the prevalence of natural disasters and temperature rises, creating heightened conditions for both internal migration and outmigration, or the emigration of individuals from impacted countries. ² And yet, the international legal community has largely ignored climate change’s role in both impacts, an absence of protections for individuals impacted by climate change in refugee and displacement frameworks. Such a lack results in complicated questions of receiving countries’ international obligations as stakeholders beholden by international law.  

In the coming decades, it will become increasingly clear that refugee frameworks ought to be readily accessible to climate-displaced individuals. Without robust legal protections, individuals are highly vulnerable to worsening cycles of violence. In 2022, I spent three months on gendered climate change policy with the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. One of our primary talking points? Climate-displaced women and girls. The commission’s outcome document—a collaborative effort of all member states and non-state stakeholders—spent pages advocating for extensive infrastructure investments that addressed the ongoing pandemic of climate change-created violence.³  The biggest obstacle to international legal action is the lack of a standardized framework for climate-displaced individuals. More attention must be paid to the ways climate change uniquely creates conditions not unlike those that fall under the 1951 Refugee Convention, which is currently the reigning legal document on refugee law. 

Over the past few decades, climate change has caused a rapid increase in the frequency of large-scale natural disasters. In 2023 alone, Tropical Cyclone Freddy wreaked havoc on south-eastern Africa for more than a month. During that time, the cyclone created 1.4 million internally displaced refugees across six countries and territories in the region.⁴ However, disasters like Tropical Cyclone Freddy are not unique. In the Caribbean, hurricanes have become “commonplace,” with many island nations forced to assume the infrastructure responsibility for chronic displacement. ⁵ Hurricane Maria’s devastation in Dominica resulted in 94% of the nation’s buildings being damaged, leading many citizens to permanently flee the country. ⁵ With each minute increase in global temperatures, disasters become increasingly common. Therefore, the need to recognize such natural disasters not as political fodder but as real reasons for international protection is not only beneficial but necessary.  

However, climate change does not only raise the potential for natural disaster conditions but also directly causes temperature rises, threatening the livelihoods of many individuals. Particularly in agriculture-dependent areas, temperature rises tend to increase outmigration due to declining growing conditions. ⁶ High levels of CO₂, and their impact on local and ground temperature, are associated with reduced agricultural yield. ⁷ For developing nations whose economies are still dominated by agricultural production—many of which are those located close to now-rising sea levels—the increased temperatures threaten the base of economic productivity. For those reliant on the economy’s agricultural sector, low yields threaten their financial and economic well-being and independence.

Yet, reduced agricultural yields are not the only way climate change directly threatens human lives. In many island nations, climate change and its rising sea levels through temperature increases result in contaminated water systems and overcrowding. For example, Kiribati has a long-recorded history of threatened access to clean drinking water and sanitation systems due to saltwater contamination. ⁸ For individuals living within these infrastructure systems, the only way out is emigration. Many climate scientists even predict that approximately 143 million people in the Global South will lose control over their mobility—either through forced migration or forced non-migration—at the hands of climate change by 2050. ⁹ While of course claiming causation in these instances is complex due to accusations of inadequate infrastructure, it is ultimately indisputable that these issues would not exist if not for climate change’s irreparable damage to local environments. ⁶

The aforementioned impacts of climate change on migration are not a secret. Rather, countries around the world acknowledge climate will forever impact migration trends. Nevertheless, international legal protections for migrants have not reflected such acknowledgments. The 1951 Refugee Convention is currently the official legal document defining refugee eligibility. The document has not been altered since 1967 when the 1967 Protocol simply expanded the original World War 2, Eurocentric Convention to a constant, international one. Because of its dated nature, currently, the only individuals eligible for refugee recognition under international law are those having “fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, [and/or] membership of a particular social group or political opinion” that reside outside of their home nation and cannot be protected by such home nation. ¹ Notably absent is any recognition of natural or environmental-derived threats. Instead, contemporary documents that discuss climate-displaced individuals only acknowledge the existence of “migrants compelled to leave their countries of origin” due to climate-related threats without ever using the term refugee.¹⁰ For example, rather than recommending entrance into the asylum process, the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration advocates for states to “devise planned relocation and visa options” when life in the country of origin becomes impossible. ¹⁰ Important to note, however, is that these documents are only recommendations rather than legally binding refugee frameworks. And, therefore, they are never enough to create legal obligations for climate refugees.  

Even in climate change-specific advocacy in international law, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are reticent to adopt refugee language in recommendations for disaster and climate change response. For example, one NGO’s 2015 agenda to protect disaster-induced emigrants specifies that they do “not aim to expand States’ legal obligations under international refugee and human rights law.” ¹¹ Such clarification demonstrates the precarious position advocates and climate-displaced persons occupy within international legal spaces; rather than advocating for asylum protections, international stakeholders have instead found more opportunities in arguing around the issue of refugees.  

Perhaps the most notable event that reinforced such hesitation was the 2020 case of Ioane Teitiota v. New Zealand in front of the United Nations’ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. A native of Kiribati, Teitiota sought asylum in New Zealand due to “scarce” freshwater due to saltwater contamination and “overcrowding” caused by the “effects of climate change and sea level rise.” ⁸ Since no such events are covered in the official legal definition of refugee outlined by the 1951 Refugee Convention, New Zealand deported Teitiota. Teitiota claimed such removal “violated his right to life.” ⁸ While the ruling in and of itself is impactful for international refugee law, perhaps most notable is the Immigration and Protection Tribunal’s statement that climate change’s impacts could potentially “create pathways into the Refugee Convention or protected person jurisdiction.”⁸ This language implies that while climate change itself does not create refugee conditions, a nation’s response to such impacts may create such conditions. The ruling therefore left the door open for expanding refugee protections in future years and cases.  

However, the current ambiguous status of climate-impacted individuals’ legal status within international displacement frameworks results in complex issues of obligation and mobility. For Teitiota, his inability to fit within the guidelines of the 1951 Refugee Convention resulted in his return to Kiribati, where he continues to struggle with his nation’s rising sea levels and failing infrastructure. Still, the ruling did not rule out the possibility of future refugee-like protections for climate-displaced individuals. Instead, the committee recognized the importance of the future possibility of climate change creating refugees. This is integral to future international lawsuits, which may now use Teitiota’s case as precedence for further expanding protections one by one. Then, even if policy fails to catch up with the rising sea levels, perhaps case law may.  

However, for future works like the 2022 United Nations Commission on the Status of Women outcome document to create genuine change and action for individuals around the world, there must be standardized legal norms for nations directly tied to policy obligations. While our hands were tied to certain language in 2022, they cannot be in 2026. The politicization of climate change has severely harmed our ability to be active policymakers, especially in terms of climate-change-displaced persons. We must ask ourselves whether it is better to uphold our moral obligation to protect individuals or adhere to tradition. We must hold ourselves accountable to not only those near us, but to those far away and vulnerable to climate change’s wrath. We must do more than donate life jackets to sinking countries—our nations must become life jackets. 

Works Cited

1.  UNHCR. n.d. “Refugees.” UNHCR US. https://www.unhcr.org/us/about-unhcr/who-we-protect/refugees.  

2. Berlemann, Michael, and Max Friedrich Steinhardt. 2017. “Climate Change, Natural Disasters, and Migration—a Survey of the Empirical Evidence.” CESifo Economic Studies 63 (4): 353–85. https://doi.org/10.1093/cesifo/ifx019.

3.  United Nations Economic and Social Council. Achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programmes. New York City, United States: United Nations, 2022, https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/ltd/n22/303/59/pdf/n2230359.pdf

4. “Malawi – Cyclone Freddy Puts Disaster Risk Management to the Test.” 2024. IDMC – Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. 2024. https://www.internal-displacement.org/spotlights/Malawi-Cyclone-Freddy-puts-disaster-risk-management-to-the-test/.

5.  Chin-Yee, Simon. 2019. “Climate Change and Human Security: Case Studies Linking Vulnerable Populations to Increased Security Risks in the Face of the Global Climate Challenge.” April 10, 2019. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332328817_Climate_change_and_human_security_Case_studies_linking_vulnerable_populations_to_increased_security_risks_in_the_face_of_the_global_climate_challenge.

6. Berlemann and Steinhardt, “Climate Change, Natural Disasters.”

7. Malhi, Gurdeep Singh, Manpreet Kaur, and Prashant Kaushik. 2021. “Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture and Its Mitigation Strategies: A Review.” Sustainability 13 (3): 1318. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031318.

8. Ioane Teitiota v. New Zealand, CCPR/C/127/D/2728/2016, UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), 7 January 2020, https://www.refworld.org/jurisprudence/caselaw/hrc/2020/en/123128.

9. Almulhim, Abdulaziz I, Gabriela Nagle Alverio, Ayyoob Sharifi, Rajib Shaw, Saleemul Huq, Md Juel Mahmud, Shakil Ahmad, and Ismaila Rimi Abubakar. 2024. “Climate-Induced Migration in the Global South: An in Depth Analysis.” Npj Climate Action 3 (1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-024-00133-1.

10. United Nations General Assembly. Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. New York City, United States: United Nations, 2019, https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n18/451/99/pdf/n1845199.pdf 

11. Review of AGENDA for the PROTECTION of CROSS-BORDER DISPLACED PERSONS in the CONTEXT of DISASTERS and CLIMATE CHANGE. 2015. Geneva, Switzerland: The Nansen Initiative. https://disasterdisplacement.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/PROTECTION-AGENDA-VOLUME-1.pdf.

Photo Credit: Daniel Mietchen