Why COP21 Won't Solve the 'Climate Refugee' Problem

The images have started to enter the public consciousness: the Pacific islander whose homeland is sinking beneath the waves, the Sahel villagers forced off their ancestral land by creeping drought and desertification. But even as climate change forces people from their homes, no clear legal consensus has appeared as to how the international community should deal with the problem.

The existing refugee convention doesn’t work. It specifically defines refugees as fleeing state persecution, not macro-level anthropogenic climate effects. It’s also very hard to determine who should count as a climate refugee, given all the intermingling factors that ultimately force someone to leave. That’s why the negotiators hashing out the world’s most important climate deal in Paris right now aren’t even considering language to grant rights to climate refugees.