On April 27, 2022, the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), an international partnership of global South countries highly vulnerable to a warming planet, released a telling report titled “Climate Survival Leadership Barometer”. The report was released under the CVF’s signature initiative “Midnight Survival Deadline for the Climate”, which served to remind governments of the obligations they had taken on at the UN Climate Change Conference at Paris, or COP21, in 2015. The report analyzes updates to national mitigation and adaptation targets – referred to as “Nationally Determined Contributions” (NDCs) that countries committed to revise every five years starting in 2020 to deliver on the Paris Agreement. Some notable findings on the adaptation side are worth highlighting, for they speak to the collective will (or lack thereof) of governments to institutionalize the very resiliency-building measures needed to address root causes of migration in a climate crisis-stricken world. 

The fact that only 73 countries (40%) responded to the UNFCCC call for new national climate ambitions in 2020 does not cast a positive light on the overall situation, even if a handful of countries still made informal commitments. On the upside, however, 68 of the 73 countries which did submit revised targets were judged by the CVF to have strengthened their commitments on adaptation and resilience. Still, there were notable outliers in both directions.

Luckily, national CVF chair and highly climate-vulnerable Bangladesh, which is estimated to see one in every seven people displaced by climate change by 2050, set a strong example with the release of its “Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan”. Within the plan, the Bangladesh government states commitments to continue supporting housing initiatives to settle displaced and landless people through the extension of land ownership, ensuring “visibility of the vulnerable and enabling their access to services” (see “Ashrayan” initiative for an early stage example).

Nepal’s stated pledge to devise a “national strategy and action plan on loss and damage (L&D)” by 2025 is also laudable considering the ongoing lack of policy frameworks for addressing L&D – a major symbol of climate injustice and a massive financial burden for developing countries already facing fiscal constraints on climate adaptation. Kenya, for example, made important adaptation commitments in its updated NDC with 50 prioritized adaptation programs, but quoted that the cost of such actions would amount to USD 43.927 billion, only 10% of which could be domestically mobilized in the absence of international support. 

Further, within Kenya’s updated NDC, no promises were made to uphold current responsibilities of hosting (largely) drought-displaced migrants from the Horn of Africa, whose fate rests uncertain amidst ongoing threats of closure to Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya’s North, which hosts over 200,000 refugees. Interestingly, Somalia itself made commitments in its (later submitted) NDC updates to invest more in facilities and settlements for IDPs. Still, any investments would be vastly insufficient to support any major influx of deportees – a terrifying outcome which could result from a Dadaab refugee camp closure scenario. 

While the above pledges reflect largely positive developments, despite certain gaps, more severe concerns are raised by the fact that 35 countries have either not submitted nor committed updated NDCs (31 countries) or have submitted updated NDCs but not committed new ambitions on either mitigation or adaptation (4 countries). Major climate players like the USA, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Nigeria, and South Africa all fall within this group. 

As far as the future of the climate migration crisis goes, the CVF’s report offers limited new insights. Indeed, the need for adaptation and the shortage of both pledges and concrete actions to advance it are well-recognized. Still, one overarching conclusion to be drawn from this report, is that global climate policy is still characterized by a highly disparate patchwork of largely nationally-oriented agendas, while also subject to the whims of an ever changing political leadership. This trend does not bode well for a future in which sound management of the climate migration crisis rests upon strong and consistent international cooperation. 

NDCs are undoubtedly necessary for countries to individually uphold their responsibilities in responding to climate change on both mitigation and adaptation fronts. But to address internationally transcendent issues like climate migration, displacement, and mobility, collective arrangements are needed. So in 2025, when countries are asked to submit a third iteration of their NDCs, the UNFCCC ought to encourage adaptation pledges which not only minimize the vulnerabilities which spur climate (im)mobility but which also reflect cohesive policies across, at the very minimum, select border-sharing countries. Without such, those on the move will continue to face uncertain protections, arbitrarily and inequitably determined by the geographic distribution of their movements, and largely unchosen destinations. 

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