Hein de Haas in Persuasion:
“The great climate migration has begun.” “Climate crisis could displace 1.2bn people by 2050.” “Migration will soon be the biggest climate challenge of our time.”
These are just some of the headlines that have appeared in major international newspapers. They reflect a widely shared belief that climate change will lead to mass migration. A broad coalition of journalists, politicians, climate activists and migration experts have claimed that the effects of global warming will lead to massive movements of climate refugees.
Much media attention has focused on the fate of “sinking islands” in the Pacific, such as the Maldives and Tuvalu, widely seen as the first victims of climate change. We are told that rising sea levels are forcing more and more people to relocate—the world’s first climate refugees. Experts have claimed that a series of devastating climate change-related hurricanes in Central America have spurred migration to the United States, and that protracted droughts are forcing more and more Africans onto boats in desperate attempts to reach Europe. From this viewpoint, countering climate change by reducing carbon emissions is the only way to prevent a human tide of climate refugees from overwhelming Western countries.
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