The Plight of Climate Refugees Under the 1951 Refugee Convention

What should be the criteria for deciding who is considered a refugee? The number of refugees has tripled in the past decade alone and continues to rise, according to the UNHCR, progressively leaving more people behind in resettlement programs [1]. Concerningly, these numbers exclude a sizable group of people — climate migrants — who, despite also experiencing threats to their livelihoods, do not have a legal claim to refugee status under the 1951 Refugee Convention because climate-induced harms are not within the definition [2]. In 2022, the International Displacement Monitoring Center estimated that a staggering 32.6 million people were displaced within their countries due to worsened environmental conditions caused by climate change [3]. If the climate crisis continues escalating as predicted, these migrants who are not protected by the Refugee Convention will increasingly be subjected to harm without the potential for resettlement [4]. Thus, the current dissonance between the Refugee Convention’s definition of refugees and the lived realities of climate migrants harms millions of people who lack access to external support without relocating using refugee status. Their plight makes it crucial to reconsider how climate-induced migration can be better protected by amending the Convention.

Climate “refugees,” who are not currently recognized by the 1951 Refugee Convention, are migrants who are displaced for climate-related reasons, such as floods and fires [5]. These problems often have trickle-down effects; that is, an area experiencing climate change-induced flooding will not just face the immediate consequences of losing homes and infrastructure, but also food insecurity due to the farmable land being flooded, economic losses, and others, depending on the disaster [6]. During the Mozambique cyclones in 2019, for instance, approximately 1.85 million people were displaced due to more than 240,000 homes, 30% of the road network, and other vital infrastructure, such as hospitals and telecommunications, being destroyed [7]. Generally, these crises disproportionately occur in countries in the Global South; despite producing “relatively few emissions” themselves, these areas are more vulnerable to the effects of greenhouse gas emissions from the most industrialized countries [8]. In contrast, higher-income countries, generally in the Global North, have more resources and infrastructure to mitigate extreme weather conditions. Additionally, their ways of sustenance are not as closely affected by climate as those reliant on arable land or consistent rainfall levels to farm, meaning that these wealthier nations are more reliable areas of resettlement for climate refugees [9]. Ultimately, climate change will lead extremely dry areas, such as the Horn of Africa, to become even drier, possibly reaching the point of desertification [10]. Facing the opposite issue, in 2021, Nature Communications estimated that 267 million people live in coastal regions under active threat of being submerged due to rising sea levels, such as Bangladesh [11]. However, the nature of the resulting displacement does not fulfill the Convention’s requirement for refugee status: leaving one’s country due to “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion” and being “unable or, owing to such fear, […] unwilling to return to” their country [12]. Following this definition, climate migrants cannot claim refugee status, which creates two key problems for those who cannot sustain themselves by merely moving within their country of origin.

First, given that they do not face active persecution, climate migrants cannot relocate to different countries by invoking the Refugee Convention. In Ioane Teitiota v. New Zealand, a man from Kiribati, an island in Oceania, was denied asylum in New Zealand because his claim as a “climate refugee” was considered illegitimate by the Immigration and Protection Tribunal, Court of Appeal, and Supreme Court [13]. The New Zealand court described the effects of climate change as “systemic,” instead of a “personal persecution against Teitiota himself,” and so the court maintained that the state itself did not infringe upon Teitiota’s rights [14]. Teitiota brought the case to the UN Human Rights Committee on the basis that New Zealand was encroaching on his rights to life by deporting him back to Kiribati, given that destabilizing rainfall patterns had curtailed his access to clean drinking water [15]. Although the Committee determined that this instance of deportation did not violate Teitiota’s right to life, it also concluded that countries may not deport individuals who face life-threatening climate-change-induced conditions [16]. This case thrust the consequences of climate change into the spotlight, establishing a precedent against deporting migrants who would be returned to hazardous climate conditions. However, being protected from deportation is insufficient: refugees also need easily accessible pathways to entry. Unless there is a threat of violence directly resulting from climate change, the Refugee Convention does not yet protect those affected by the climate crisis who need to relocate [17]. Given the magnitude of the current predicted effects of climate change — something the 1951 Convention could not have foreseen — this definition should be reexamined.

Second, given that the Refugee Convention states that individuals must be outside of their country of origin in addition to experiencing the threat of prosecution to be granted refugee status, climate-displaced people are often unable to leave in the first place [18]. Thus, while climate migrants sometimes relocate within their country with the hope of returning to their home after a natural disaster, domestic migration is often insufficient [19]. Many migrants need to flee to countries with better infrastructure when climate disasters occur in their home states, as was the case during the 2022 Pakistan floods. After a climate-change-induced glacial melt displaced around 8 million people, thousands of Pakistanis attempted to relocate to Europe [20]. Because insufficient funding and more pressing issues, such as political instability, often make it incredibly difficult to develop climate-resistant infrastructure in the Global South [21], the most promising solution for displaced individuals is usually to temporarily resettle elsewhere [22]. Although certain countries, such as Fiji and Italy, have domestic laws that allow climate migrants to enter despite the Refugee Convention, it is important to reassess whether this support should be internationally mandated through expanding the refugee definition in anticipation of worsening climate effects.

Finally, beyond changes oriented specifically to climate refugees, there should be additional mechanisms for the reinforcement of the Refugee Convention at large. Though it oversees protections for all refugees, countries have long acted against the Convention and rejected even refugees who have official status. The most recent example comes from the United States, where President Donald Trump’s recent executive order suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) bars refugees from entering the U.S. and halts funding to refugee organizations [23]. While this decision is currently being challenged in Pacito v. Trump, this retraction of refugee intake and support demonstrates the relative weakness of an international convention based on principled agreement [24]. This is not to suggest that it is any less important for climate refugees to be included in the Refugee Convention, but rather to note that it is critical to simultaneously strengthen enforcement of the Convention, as it is the prerequisite for climate refugees accessing any benefits associated with official status. As Judge Jamal Whitehead, who is involved in challenging the executive order, attests to the harms of Trump’s policy to individuals who were scheduled to enter the country: “I have refugees stranded in dangerous places. I have families who have sold everything they’ve owned in advance of travel, which was canceled” [25]. Hence, because the international norms that countries like the U.S. have already agreed to still fail to offer full accountability, merely amending the 1951 Refugee Convention may not adequately relieve the plight of climate refugees. Rather, countries must be urged to adopt domestic laws — such as New Zealand’s policy issuing visas for climate migrants from Pacific Islands — that are internally enforced [26].

Considering the worsening effects of climate change and its correlation with increased migrants, especially from countries that are already sustaining environmental damage, it is crucial to redefine refugee status, such that the groups vulnerable to climate crises and who are already experiencing the consequences can access sufficient claims to resettlement through the 1951 Refugee Convention. It is not enough to merely acknowledge that the consequences of the climate crisis impact those in threatened areas, especially not when comparatively wealthier countries that have historically contributed the most to the decay of their natural environments are turning a cold shoulder to climate migrants. Instead, by amending the Refugee Convention to include climate refugees, the legal community should strive to incorporate climate-induced issues into the conversation about what responsibilities countries have to vulnerable populations.

Bibliography

[1] “Global Trends,” UNHCR, https://www.unhcr.org/global-trends.

[2] U.N. 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, https://www.refworld.org/legal/agreements/unga/1951/en/39821.

[3] Abigail Basset, “Climate Migration Is on the Rise around the World,” Climatebase, January 5, 2024, https://climatebase.org/blog/climate-migration-is-on-the-rise-around-the-world.

[4] “Environmental Refugee,” National Geographic, https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/environmental-refugee/.

[5] Tetsuji Ida, “Climate refugees - the world’s forgotten victims,” World Economic Forum, June 18, 2021, https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/06/climate-refugees-the-world-s-forgotten-victims/.

[6] “How Climate Change Exacerbates Population Displacement,” Relief Web, April 26, 2024, https://reliefweb.int/report/world/how-climate-change-exacerbates-population-displacement.

[7] ibid.

[8] “Environmental Refugee.”

[9] ibid.

[10] ibid.

[11] ibid.

[12] U.N. 1951 Convention.

[13] “UN landmark case for people displaced by climate change,” Amnesty International, January 20, 2020, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/01/un-landmark-case-for-people-displaced-by-climate-change/.

[14] Morgaine Noel, “Here's how international law can protect people fleeing environmental disaster,” World Economic Forum, March 16, 2023, https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/03/as-people-flee-environmental-disasters-how-can-international-law-help-them/.

[15] “UN landmark case.”

[16] “Historic UN Human Rights case opens door to climate change asylum claims,” OHCHR, January 21, 2020, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2020/01/historic-un-human-rights-case-opens-door-climate-change-asylum-claims.

[17] U.N. 1951 Convention.

[18] ibid.

[19] Huang, Lawrence, “Climate Migration 101: An Explainer,” Migration Policy Institute, November 16, 2023, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/climate-migration-101-explainer.

[20] ibid.

[21] Georgieva, Kristalina, Vitor Gaspar, Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, “Poor and Vulnerable Countries Need Support to Adapt to Climate Change,” IMF Blog, March 23, 2022, https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/03/23/blog032322-poor-and-vulnerable-countris-need-support-to-adapt-to-climate-change.

[22] “Climate Change and Displacement,” UNHCR, https://www.unhcr.org/what-we-do/build-better-futures/climate-change-and-displacement.

[23] Gene Johnson, “Things to know about the ruling blocking President Trump’s refugee ban,” AP News, uploaded 12:03 AM EDT, February 26, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/trump-refugee-seattle-ruling-lawsuit-90d4f5eef5ff751e5b4fd45e5c9d9358.

[24] “Advocates React to Judge Granting Preliminary Injunction in Trump Refugee Ban Challenge,” IRAP, February 25, 2025, https://refugeerights.org/news-resources/advocates-react-to-judge-granting-preliminary-injunction-in-trump-refugee-ban-challenge.

[25] Johnson, “Things to know.”

[26] “New Zealand creates special refugee visa for Pacific islanders affected by climate change,” The Straits Times, December 9, 2017, https://str.sg/38go.