Decryption

Climate refugee: a status to invent?

Audio 7:30 p.m.

Displaced people from Cyclone Ana and Batsirai found refuge in this gymnasium in Ankorondrano on February 5, 2022. © REUTERS - ALKIS KONSTANTINIDIS

By: Anne Corpet Follow

1 min

In 2021, the number of displaced people worldwide rose to 59.1 million, including 23.7 million due to climate-related disasters, according to a study by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) and the Norwegian Council for Displaced Persons. refugees (NRC).

These people have fled cyclones, floods or drought, which are increasingly frequent and intense phenomena due to climate change.

But they do not benefit from specific protection under international law.

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Even if the wording often comes up in debates, today there is no “climate refugee” in the legal sense of the term.

However, the predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) leave little doubt: desertification and rising sea levels will push not millions, but tens, even hundreds of millions of refugees on the roads within decades.

On this International Refugee Day, Décryptage looks at the plight of these climate-swept communities who do not benefit from any specific status.

Decryption with

: 

- Alice Baillat

, thematic specialist at the

International Organization for Migration (IOM)

in Geneva on migration, environment and climate change issues and associate researcher at the

Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS)

- Marine Denis,

doctoral student in public international law, jurist in environmental law for the NGO

Notre affaires à tous

, founder of a web series on climate-displaced people. 

A program prepared with the help of Simon Carteret, Laurence Sarniguet, Sigrid Azeroual and Laurie Plisson in the production. 

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  • Immigration

  • International Migrations

  • Climate change

  • Natural disasters

  • Climate

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