Climate refugees: Arriving at a possible framework

Abstract

Climate change has become an inescapable part of reality and has lately garnered noticeable attention. A plethora of studies dedicated to climate change aimed at figuring out the intricacies of the same has been conducted. The impact of climate change on human movement across as well as within borders is rela-tively under-discussed. Currently, there exists no standardized definition of a climate refugee, nor does the term find mention in the 1951 Refugee Convention. This chapter aims at exploring the challenges of coming to a possible theoretical framework to facilitate better policy-making. A brief historical account of migration has been presented followed by debates surrounding the term climate refugee. It also takes into consideration the implications the recognition (by state and non-state institutions) will have. The discourse on development and the North-South divide has been taken into account for arriving at a possible framework and offer a contextualized explana-tion of the phenomenon. For the same, the cases of the Netherlands and Bangladesh have been taken into account. Finally, the aim is to center climate-induced displace-ment on the debates around global migration to facilitate well-researched responses and possible policy formulation.