The pace of climate-induced migration is accelerating. While most climate migrants are to this point moving within their own states, there is little doubt that rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and environmental degradation will increasingly give rise to involuntary migration beyond the borders of the states most directly impacted.
The World Refugee & Migration Council (WRMC) believes that a thoughtful, coordinated approach can minimize the risk of political and social disruption, support the states that will receive climate migrants, and protect the dignity of those displaced. By planning ahead and implementing proactive solutions, states can turn the complex challenge of climate-induced transnational migration into a manageable one.
But the time to act is now.
The WRMC seeks to engage the climate-induced migration issue at a practical level — not to prepare another study or guidance note, but rather to provide leadership in designing a principled and practical action plan that can be shared with states and other actors. Specifically, the WRMC is committed to leading an effort to conceive a workable, politically saleable, and rights-regarding action plan that focuses squarely on the external migration component of responding to climate change.
The action plan comprises three components:
- Short term: Focus on providing external relocation options for the relatively small number of climate migrants now unable to find a solution within their own country.
- Medium term: Bolster national reception capacity and broaden the base to include creative regional cooperation initiatives.
- Longer term: Envisage a normative shift in international treaty law through a Protocol to the UN Statelessness Convention (1954) to include a duty to protect climate migrants as de facto stateless persons.
