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Climate Refugee: International and Domestic Response

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With climate changing, many international responses to it as a threat to international security. The reason is that it threatens the border security landscapes of many third world countries. Then with many refugees affected by climate changes, they intensify to the threat. The reason for such a risk is related to food, human rights, and clean drinking water in many third world countries.1 The wall in Hungary was finished on August 31, 2015, to stop illegal migration as a European law. The fence runs about 109 miles on the border near Serbia and it's 13 feet high but with a massive wall, there was still “70,000 migrants so far this year, compared with 43,000 in the whole of last year.”2 The next country with a negative response was India, and their wall was built in the 80’s. It’s 8 feet high and run along the border with Bangladesh of 2,500 miles that's made out of wires. It’s known as the Great Wall of India or the Wall of Death because 80,000 officers will shoot at will to anyone who tries to cross illegally.1

However, with such a negative view on climate refugees, many United Nations programs are creating and funding adaptation programs for victims, helps with relocations, and help communities cope with the influx of refugees. Some of the primary programs who is helping out with climate refugees are UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNCCC), UN High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR), UN Development Programme (UNDP), and World Bank. The UNCCC helps with preventing and reducing climate change. UNHCR protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide while UNDP creates policies to alleviate poverty and inequalities. Then World Bank contribute to end and promote shared prosperity. Then some of the first world countries that are willing to help with climate refugees are Germany, Australia, USA, and Canada.


As of 2015, Germany has an influx of 800,000 climate refugees and is expected to have more migrating into their country in 2016.8 With such an increase amount of people, Germany has come up with a way to build faster and easier homes for their new residents. The photo on the top are container homes that were build in 2013 and about 245,000 more were built in 2015.8 The container can fit up to 2 people into a room with a small stove, sink, and freezer. Germany has predicted that they will need to make about 350,000 more each year with the increased refugees coming in.8


"But, critics say that money can't fix the irreparable damage already caused by carbon emissions, for example fresh water sources polluted by sea water, or the destruction of arable land for food sources. Land that people can no longer live on has no value: instead, migration is necessary." 8

Kiribati, Maldives and Bangladesh are a few of the developing countries who took action in their own hands to survive from climate change. A father names Kidd, he’s a lawyer whose from Kiribati, had made an appeal to fight for justice to let his wife and three children live in New Zealand. Since the international definition of refugee stated that refugee runs from persecution. Kidd’s appeal was “Climate change is an indirect form of persecution due to carbon emissions of industrialized countries.” (D.W., n.d.).9 If Kidd loses this appeal at the New Zealand High Court judge Justice Pankhurst then his family will get deported back to their home country. If the international law is expand the refugees definition then soon there will be more climate change refugees than refugees from war. In Maldives, the president seeks to buy new land for his country. His vision for his citizen is that he will not let them be refugees who live in tents. Maldives main income comes from annual tourist, due to climate change it affect their stable living. Climate change causes sea level rises in Maldives which it is 2.4 meters above sea level.10 The top country for the new land will be in Sri Lanka or India because they have similar culture, cuisine and climates like Maldives. Australia is another option because they have large amount of unoccupied land. In Bangladesh, the government is asking the wealthy nations to help take in millions of Bangladesh that is affected by climate change. Bangladeshi had been relocating to Dhaka, it’s a bigger city up north. Bangladesh is also affected by sea level rises; in 2010 report with one meter sea level rise it will cover up 18% of Bangladesh land.5 About 30 million people will lose their home and need to relocate elsewhere.

1. Lisa Friedman, "How Will Climate Refugees Impact National Security?" Scientific American.
2. Corey Charlton, "Good Luck with That! Hungarian Soldiers Build Border Fence They Hope Will Stop Unprecedented Flow of Migrants from Serbia ." Mail Online.
8. Atika Shubert,, "Refugee Crisis: How Germany Rose to the Occasion." CNN.
9. D.W., “On appeal: The ‘Climate Refugee’ Issue. Human Rights.
10. Randeep Ramesh, “Paradise almost lost: Maldives Seek to Buy a New Homeland”.

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