The international community now increasingly recognises that environmental degradation and climate change could potentially result in population displacement on a scale the world is presently ill-equipped to prevent or address in an effective manner. Gradual processes of degradation as well…
As early as 1990 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)[1] was arguing that the greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration. So far, the scientific community has focused on establishing the extent and nature of…
Terms and concepts such as environmental migration, climate change-induced migration, ecological or environmental refugees, climate change migrants and environmentally-induced forced migrants are found scattered throughout the literature. The main reason for the lack of definition relating to migration caused by…
Some say that those displaced as a result of environmental or climate change are refugees and advocate for the expansion of the definition of a refugee in the 1951 Refugee Convention in order to include them; others call for the…
The Environmental Change and Forced Migration Scenarios (EACH-FOR) project is a systematic attempt to detect the degree to which, and the pathways through which, environmental stressors affect migration.[1] Today, environmental change including climate change presents a new threat to human…
The environmental challenges facing Central Asia include the industrial legacies of the former Soviet Union – contaminated land and pollution of soils and rivers. The area is also prone to earthquakes and landslides and it is anticipated that the melting…
One of the problems in migration-environment studies is the difficulty of establishing causal relations. In a survey among 203 internal migrants from north-west Ghana, the vast majority mentioned environmental reasons for leaving their homes. The respondents – settler farmers living…
The normative framework for people displaced by the effects of climate change inside their own country is better developed than that for people displaced outside their country. Many of the former are IDPs and their rights protected by human rights…
Taking a human rights approach to climate change, grounded in the principle of the inherent dignity of the human person, implies that it is not only the total numbers of those displaced that matter. Every single person who is forced…
Islanders from Vanuatu and the Bay of Bengal have already been forced to move as a result of sea-level rise while many island communities in Alaska – in the face of fierce storms and rapid coastal erosion – are contemplating…