Two researchers from one of India’s top universities have proposed a normative legal framework for addressing the increasingly dire issue of climate-induced migration. In a paper published in Wiley Interdisciplinary Review: Climate Change, Professor Sudhir C. Rajan and Dr. Sujatha Byravan call for countries to accept people forced to flee their homes due to the impacts of climate change under the principle of non-refoulement, a well-established legal principle at the heart of the 1951 Refugee Convention that prevents countries from returning people to places where they would be in danger.

Reflecting the need for fairness and solidarity in any framework meant to tackle the complex issues around climate migration, the researchers argue that those seeking asylum should be absorbed in host countries according to cumulative greenhouse gas emissions. This principle of proportionality is central to ongoing discussions about climate change, particularly loss and damage. Indeed, while it continues to ruffle feathers in wealthy countries, it is undeniable that the people and countries least responsible for climate change are bearing the brunt of its negative effects.

The paper provides a clear signal that the worsening climate situation will require major policy shifts and that solutions should reflect this inequality, with Byravan noting that there is an “urgent need to ensure that people from countries that have emitted very little greenhouse gasses are not left fending for themselves.”

One major obstacle in addressing these issues is the significant gap in legal status and protection that exists when it comes to those migrating due to climate change. As Byravan notes, climate migrants essentially have “no legal standing”, which demands greater attention in climate negotiations, especially those around loss and damage. Consideration of only economic losses, while important, is simply insufficient when it comes to addressing the needs, legal and otherwise, of climate migrants. 

The researchers acknowledge that it can often be difficult to identify exactly why individuals and households ultimately migrate, but they are clear that this hurdle cannot be an excuse for inaction. Doing so only exacerbates the legal and protection gap that allows millions of people to be largely ignored by states and other actors.

In an attempt to overcome these complex issues, the researchers want to add a new term to the already well-established terms ‘refugee’ and ‘asylum-seeker’ - that of the ‘climate’ or ‘environmental migrant’. Rajan and Byravan propose the following definition:

“a person who is forced to leave their home predominantly for reasons of climate or other environmental change.”

Throughout the paper, they also use the term ‘climate exile’ to refer to those climate or environmental migrants who cross a border mainly due to climate change.

Finally, the researchers propose two possible approaches for providing remedial justice for climate migrants. Their ‘strong’ approach sees all asylum-seekers as worthy of refuge, even if they fail to meet the 1951 Convention criteria. Parties to such a framework would ideally provide protection in a way that is proportionate to their cumulative emissions. A ‘mild’ approach would instead focus on particularly vulnerable areas, such as small island states and low-lying delta areas. Asylum-seekers would require rights to free movement and must be integrated into host communities, again through some kind of proportional or otherwise fair agreement.

Many wealthy countries will undoubtedly bristle at such a plan, and they have so far successfully prevented the introduction of such a legally binding term in international instruments. But decades of insufficient action on climate change is rapidly shrinking the set of solutions available, especially for vulnerable people in the Global South. This proposal out of India highlights the urgent need for greater legal protections for climate migrants, and that any solution must be implemented in a way that addresses the injustices of climate change. Failure to do so will only worsen the situation for millions of people who continue to find themselves outside the scope of established legal frameworks, with dire consequences.

India’s Climate Migration on the Rise

Unrelated to the researchers’ legal proposal, a new report finds India is the country fourth worst-hit by climate-induced migration, with more than three million people forced to flee their homes in 2020-2021.

The ‘State of India’s Environment 2022’ report lists China at the top with five million displacements due to weather-related disasters, followed by the Philippines and Bangladesh, each recording over four million climate displacements.

The uptick in displacement and migration are in-turn increasingly making people vulnerable to trafficking. The Indian states of Bihar, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have seen both increased extreme weather events and high numbers of trafficking cases.

In keeping with recent findings in other displacements reports, India’s report found climate was a bigger driver of displacement than conflict or violence - of the 40 million forced to migrate in 2020, 30.7 million were climate-driven, while 9.8 million were due to conflict and violence.

Over the next 30 years, 143 million people - a little more than the whole population of the state of Maharashtra - could be internally displaced by the climate crisis. By 2059, 44 million people are expected to be forcibly displaced due to drought.

Coastal states are highly vulnerable to a rapid increase in floods, cyclones and weather-related disasters while interior regions are seeing slower-onset effects like drought.

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