The climate crisis is making places unlivable. Where are people going?

What should you do when your home gets flooded – and the waters don’t subside?

That’s the question that millions of people in South Sudan are currently grappling with. Since 2019, up to half the counties in the world’s newest country have experienced regular, severe flooding.

Five years on, many places are now permanently submerged.

“People are using canoes to travel in places where there used to be roads,” says Abraham Wani, the executive director of humanitarian NGO Survivor Aid and coordinator of the Global Landscapes Forum’s GLFx Juba chapter.

Some of those affected are trying to survive on tiny, low-lying ‘islands’ in the new waterscape. Many are moving in search of drier land to settle and farm.

Climate-fueled conflict

In a country that’s thick with intercommunal tension and violence, this influx is exacerbating existing conflicts.

“Once a community is displaced, then they need to seek shelter in nearby communities – and sometimes once they reach that community, there are violent conflicts, and they may be forced to travel much further and seek refuge outside the country,” says Wani.

“There are increased cases of gender-based violence and child marriage when this kind of displacement happens, too.”

What’s more, given the long-running war in South Sudan, many parts of the country are peppered with landmines, which displaced people are frequently unaware of as they search for vacant spots to reestablish themselves.

Wani’s words encapsulate why many scientists now consider the climate crisis a ‘threat multiplier’ that’s exacerbating tensions in conflict-affected parts of the world.

From New Zealand to Nigeria and as far north as the Arctic, floods and fires have pushed people from their homes across the globe in recent years.

Yet their impact is most profound for communities with limited social safety nets, and those living under insecure and impoverished states that cannot provide adequate disaster relief or support their people to settle elsewhere.

Where do climate refugees come from?

Wani’s story is one that challenges common misconceptions about who is most at risk of being displaced by the climate crisis.

Much media coverage is focused on small island states affected by sea level rise. It’s undeniable that residents in these places – particularly low-lying atolls like those of Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Maldives – face profound decisions as the sea swallows the land.

Yet much larger numbers of people are being displaced by increasingly frequent and intense natural disasters in Asia, Africa and, to a lesser extent, the Americas.

In 2022, Pakistan, the Philippines and China saw the most people displaced due to disasters, followed by India and Nigeria.

There are no comprehensive global statistics of climate-induced human migration, but the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) listed an “all-time high” of 71 million internally displaced people (IDPs) globally in 2022.

That included 32.6 million people displaced by disasters – a 40-percent increase from the previous year.

That year, notes the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), 84 percent of refugees and asylum seekers fled from highly climate-vulnerable countries, up from 61 per cent in 2010.

And that figure is set to continue rising. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has projected that 143 million people are likely to be uprooted by sea level rise, drought, extreme heat and other climate disasters over the next 30 years.

“There is an increasing need for durable solutions to meet the scale of the challenges facing displaced people,” said the IDMC’s director, Alexandra Bilak, in a press release.

“This spans the expansion of cash assistance and livelihood programmes that improve IDPs’ economic security, through to investments in risk reduction measures that strengthen their communities’ resilience.”

Where do climate refugees go?

While migration across the Mediterranean and the US–Mexican border may grab the headlines, the majority of people displaced by climate disasters move internally – and often with the hope of moving back if conditions improve.

A smaller number make their way to other countries: many South Sudanese, for instance, have fled to neighboring Uganda, or onward to Kenya, where there may be opportunities to apply for asylum there or in the Global North.

Yet their eligibility is complex because they aren’t recognized as refugees under international law.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), refugees are “persons who are outside their country of origin for reasons of feared persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or other circumstances that have seriously disturbed public order and, as a result, require international protection.”

UNHCR argues that ‘persons displaced in the context of disasters and climate change’ don’t qualify as refugees because most of them are internally displaced – and only people forced to flee across borders are considered refugees.

Nonetheless, in 2020, the agency published a set of legal considerations acknowledging that some people may be entitled to claim asylum abroad following a climate event or disaster.

This, however, only applies if they face “persecution“ as a result of such a disaster and are unable to relocate internally, or if the disaster is an “event seriously disturbing public order.”

A global problem requires a global solution

The creation of ‘climate refugees’ as a legal category is welcome but inadequate, especially as governments have done little to address the root cause of climate-induced displacement around the world.

The U.S., for instance, has focused on fortifying its borders, including signing a recent deal with Mexico to deport Central American migrants from its border cities.

Many of these migrants were displaced by climate disasters, such as more frequent and intense hurricanes, landslides and floods, and a string of droughts that have caused crops to fail.

This approach has been criticized for prioritizing security over humanitarian concerns and treating climate migrants as a security threat rather than as victims of global environmental change.

What’s more, there’s evidence that migrants generally contributes to economic growth and productivity in the countries they move to.

Meanwhile, across Africa, there’s a lack of both resources and political will to address climate-induced displacement. Regional organizations like the African Union have begun to acknowledge the issue, but implementation remains slow.

“Conflict, violence and climate-induced disasters are major drivers to displacement in Africa and around the world,” said the director general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Amy Pope, in a press release on the most recent Africa Migration Report.

“We must adopt proactive strategic and innovative approaches to anticipate people’s movements by having early-warning systems in place and finding lasting solutions.”

What next?

In Asia-Pacific, Australia’s recent deal with Tuvalu, a Pacific Island nation that’s predicted to become entirely submerged within decades, marks a significant step forward.

It includes provisions for relocation assistance, including the resettlement of 280 Tuvaluans in Australia each year, and support for climate adaptation, such as bolstering the low-lying atoll’s coastal defenses.

But to date, such agreements are the exception rather than the norm. Yet as the climate crisis intensifies, so too will the movement of people seeking safety and stability.

Addressing this crisis requires a global response – one that acknowledges the interconnectedness of climate change, conflict and migration. It demands both immediate humanitarian aid and collaborative, compassionate long-term solutions.

“When flooding happens, it affects the entire system that a community and its families have previously set up,” says Wani. “It may destroy their homes. It may affect their livelihoods. It may destroy their farms and their shelter. It may also disrupt their education system.

“So, for the displaced or migrant population, it requires an integrated intervention – including the provision of emergency education and additional livelihood activities in the places where they seek refuge.”