Providing Refuge for Climate Refugees in International Law

One of the most worrying impacts of global heating and climate change is the increasing number of people displaced by drought, floods, natural disasters and rising sea levels due to climate change, generally the poorest and least responsible for causing global heating. This could displace hundreds of millions in coming decades and cause many countries and coastal cities to disappear. Yet there is no legal provision for such forced migration, which is not covered under the refugee convention.

Sherrie Steiner of Purdue University Fort Wayne and the G20 Interfaith Forum has written an excellent short paper on the issue: Helping People Displaced by Climate Change in International Law, and the G20 Interfaith Forum with IEF collaboration organized a webinar on the issue described below.

The recording of this webinar is now available at https://www.g20interfaith.org/refuge-climate-refugees/.