Why the UN Refugee Convention should be updated to protect climate migrants.
A placard placed by local activists in Calais, northern France, March 8, 2023. Rhetoric about the threat posed by climate-induced displacement does not accurately portray the reality for most of those affected.
(AP Photo/Michel Spingler)
Recognizing the challenges posed by climate-induced displacement is important. But officials must avoid rhetoric about displaced people that can fuel xenophobia.
Millions have lost their homes in flooding caused by unusually heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan this year that many experts have blamed on climate change.
(AP Photo/Fareed Khan)
Does the Global North have a moral responsibility to protect and compensate those in the Global South that disproportionately bear the brunt of climate change devastation?
Fleeing to safety after a cyclone hits Bangladesh.
Abir Abdullah / EPA
When climate change is used to explain migration, social inequality is naturalised.
Thick layers of snowy ice caused by unseasonal winter rains in Sweden block wild reindeers’ traditional grazing grounds and their access to food. Climate change is jeopardizing the migration and food-gathering routines of non-human species globally.
(AP Photo/Malin Moberg)
As climate change and other conflicts put humans and other species on the move — and sometimes in conflict — we need to rethink the way we approach conservation.
A woman wades through mud to collect items from her home in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The devastation brought by hurricanes Eta and Iota in Honduras in November 2020 contributed to a sharp rise in northward migration.
(AP Photo/Moises Castillo)
If rural communities plan carefully – and some already are – they can reinvent themselves as the perfect homes for people fleeing wildfire and hurricane zones.
A man from Skuppah Indian Band rides off on his motorcycle after stopping to watch a wildfire burn on the side of a mountain in Lytton, B.C., in July 2021.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
While climate migration may be on the rise in Canada, it has been disproportionately impacting Indigenous people and communities for years.
Properties destroyed by the Lytton Creek wildfire on June 30 are seen as a cloud produced by the fire rises in the mountains above Lytton, B.C.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Climate migrants don’t fit neatly into the legal definitions of refugee or migrant, and that can leave them in limbo. The Biden administration is debating how to identify and help them.
Wild fires on the US’s West Coast displaced many from their homes, making them climate change migrants.
Ringo Chiu/Shutterstock
These books reinforce preconceived notions about migration and ignore the fact that climate change has displaced people in affluent countries like the US.
Ferries on the Padma River in Bangladesh. Development reports, academic research and news indicate that water- and climate-driven migration crises are escalating in Bangladesh.
(Nidhi Nagabhatla)
A major new report presents the latest data on the health impacts in a warming world. It found there were 296,000 heat-related deaths in people over 65 years in 2018.
Ali Asair, a young farmer in Somalia, left his family behind and traveled hundreds of kilometres in search of pasture for his animals.
Dai Kurokawa/EPA
Climate change is expected to increase the severity of natural disasters in the Asia-Pacific region, straining Australia’s ability to respond through humanitarian missions and fuelling more climate migration.
Vlad Sokhin/UNICEF handout
A Senate report recommended several measures the government should take to prepare for climate-fuelled migration, natural disasters and conflicts. The response so far has been underwhelming.
Many houses were flattened after Tropical Cyclone Evan, leading to the partial relocation of the Fijian viillage Denimanu.
Rowena Harbridge/AusAID
By 2050, climate change impacts such as storms and drought could displace up to 300 million people worldwide. Nations should recognize ‘climate migrants’ and make plans for aiding and resettling them.